Inside the Mind of a Slumping Baseball Fan

Sports. Background noise for some. Religion for others. As I am learning in school these days, a lot of what happens in the sports world falls on a continuum and the level of ones fandom is no different. The fun part is that this level can sometimes vary day-to-day, week-to-week, game-to-game, etc. 

Sports, to me, is the one area of life that can provide you with instantaneous fear, agony, and euphoria in a matter of minutes. Don't believe me? 

Here's an example from less than 24 hours ago. As a lifelong Rangers fan, I have seen them play some good baseball and some bad baseball. I have been there for the ups, like the first ever playoff game in 1996 and both Game 5s that have been played in Arlington, and I have been there for the downs, basically the 80s and early aughts. As a former employee at The Ballpark in Arlington, I have seen easily over 1,000 games in that stadium alone, not to mention countless others on my tv, computer, phone, etc. I would say I consciously consume 150 out of 162 regular season games in real time each year.

I say all of that to lead into this point: The baseball that the Texas Rangers have been playing over the past few weeks, and almost months, has been disgusting. There are really no words for it. They either can't catch a break or aren't putting themselves in favorable enough positions to steal a break. Sloppy base running, poor execution on defense, really pitiful situational hitting. Everything outside of the pitching staff has been pretty brutal to watch(tell 2000 Jeff that's how things are going and watch closely for the look he gives you, it's not gonna be pretty). But last night sure was fun, entering the ninth down a run and "BAM" homer to right, tie ballgame. Two batters later "POW" homer to left and "Hello, Win Column!"

In our world of sports, we tend to overreact to every little thing. It's in our nature and we've been doing it forever. Tiger Woods wins a tournament one week and the incessant rambling over how "he's back" controls the airwaves of national talk. Two weeks later another golfer plays a magnificent round of golf and leaves everyone, including Eldrich, in his wake and all of a sudden, "He's a Bum! He'll never win again! He should hang them up and take up knitting." Baseball, football, hockey, you name it; when it's good, it's great, when it's not it's agony.

I, on the other hand, try my best to stay in the middle of the road, knowing that (a) these sports I consume so much of are merely entertainment and (b) nothing I say or do will do anything to change what happens on the field so there's no sense in getting so worked up over it that I blow a gasket. That's not to say I don't say an expletive or two when whichever of my teams fails to execute the way I want them to. That's just nature. But I have tried to calm myself when it comes to this, emphasis on the word tried. I fail sometimes in remaining calm when someone tells me that Tony Romo is the main problem with the Cowboys without considering that he's playing with an offensive line where 2 of his 5 'protectors' led the league in missed blocks last year or when someone tells me that the Rangers would be better without Ron Washington and refuse to listen to reason that ole Wash isn't the guy up there throwing the ball or swinging the bats. In both of those cases, I completely agree that these two men aren't free of any ridicule or don't deserve some of the blame, but these are team sports and by definition, you win as a team and you lose as a team. Wanna blame one individual for losing something? Ask Novak Djokovic(sp?) why he didn't win Wimbledon. Even in that case, sometimes you lose because the other guy is just simply better, nothing more.

I don't know where I'm going with this other than to say one more thing, watching baseball is more fun when the Rangers(or the team of your choice) is winning just the same as your job is more enjoyable when your boss is giving you praise and not constantly riding you about a deadline so these past few weeks have been tough to watch, but I have continued to do so, with an open mind and forgiveness for errors in my heart. The string of bad play has also allowed my brain to try to figure out some of the other anomalies of the sports world, such as: (A) is Crossfit a sport? (B) Which sport would be best to have a background in in case of the zombie apocalypse? (C) How hard would it be to be on American Ninja Warrior and exactly how many surgeries would I need following an attempt to find out? 

I may attempt to answer those questions, or they may have been in my mind like that feather in Forrest Gump, here today and gone with the next gentle breeze.

Thanks for listening to me ramble today and my apologies for any disjointed nature of this report, I wrote it at three different times and was hoping for flow. You'll get a better effort out of me next time.