I remember one thing I said as I stumbled out of the Super Bowl party: “Well, someone had to lose.” (This is the opposite of what I often say when two teams I hate play each other: “It’s too bad someone doesn’t win.”) Whether we realize it or not, every fan of the losing team… I’m always in the process of improving my team. A valuable life skill. Living means losing loved ones, marriage, work, identity, etc., and sports are nothing compared to any of them. But sports provides a perspective: “Do you think this is a bad thing?” here we go. This is just a game. It gives us a kind of loss laboratory, a relatively safe place where we can practice preparing for losses that really matter.
Even great teams can go through heart-breaking experiences. The Yankees, who have won more World Series titles than any other team, have allowed two devastating walk-off hits in Game 7 of the World Series (1960 with Bill Mazeroski and the Pirates, 2001 with Luis Gonzalez and the Diamondbacks). There are many teams in every league and only one of them will finish the season on top. That means fans of every other team form a community of losers, a community that speaks the same language about bad beats, bad hops, bad calls, and bad decisions. And all-encompassing misfortune.
As I silently complained on social media about the pain of the Super Bowl, a friend shared this quote from former baseball commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti: It’s designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and in the summer flowers bloom, filling the afternoons and evenings. And as soon as the cold rain falls, the rain will stop and you will be alone in autumn. You count on it to ease the passage of time and keep the memories of sunshine and high skies alive. And when the sun sets, just when you need it most, it stops. ”
He’s talking about baseball, but he might be describing life itself, sweet and all too short. In sports there is joy, pain, love, hope and perhaps most of all loss. And just like in life, we keep coming back for more nonetheless.
If you’re a member of Chiefs Nation, you can celebrate as a member. If you’re a 49er believer like me, we can stare into the middle distance together. Being a fan means wearing the colors, knowing the chant and memorizing the numbers. It could mean being part of a family or part of a cult, both of which can be very appealing in these troubled times. My friend Jason is from Philadelphia, and he despises the 49ers and expresses his hatred in a disgusting manner that only Eagles fans can express. But his Eagles also lost to the Chiefs in last year’s Super Bowl, so we were all hit by the same bus. That brought us together. Our commonalities transcended the boundaries of our rooting interests. We were able to commiserate for a while before we resumed talking nonsense.
