I watched the entire fourth quarter of the most recent Bulls-Cavs game feeling as if I had just finished my 12th cup of coffee. My foot tapped rapidly. Sweat pooled above my brow and upper lip. My palms involuntarily grated my cheeks like blocks of cheese. I morphed into a little kid watching his first scary movie—my fingers covered my eyes but ever so slightly separated, like partially open blinds, to avoid completely obstructing my view. Ceaselessly on edge, utterly unable to contain for even a moment my nervous fidgets, I stared unblinking at the screen.
All this happened as I witnessed the Bulls march back to tie the game.
Then LeBron hit the game winner. Suddenly my twitching stopped. I was paralyzed.
Sports fans all suffer agonizing defeats, some more than others depending onto which team you have hitched your wagon. As a loyal Chicago sports fan that was born in the 90s (I was too young to appreciate Michael Jordan in his zenith), I’ve endured more heartbreak than most. This type of loss was a familiar sight, yet something about this one in particular left me more devastated than any other that I can recall.
After I gathered my bearings and collected my thoughts enough to regain coherency, I felt no relief. Actually I felt worse. Upon mentally recapping the game, I remembered that the outcome could have been different if David Blatt’s assistant coach/babysitter didn’t stop him from calling a timeout that the team didn’t have. A prime example of the paper-thin line between winning and losing. One tiny little moment could have given Chicago a win, but it didn’t happen. I was totally distraught.
Unable to redirect my focus onto anything else, my mind explored the present feeling.
How can the loss hurt this much? Why do I care this much about a basketball game? I do not currently nor have I ever worked for the Bulls. I have no friends or family with ties to the organization. I have no affiliations whatsoever with the team. The Bulls players, coaches, and management have no idea that I even exist. The outcome of this game had no direct impact on my daily life.
Knowing all this, somehow I was still inconsolably grieved following the Bulls loss. Psychosomatic pain was kicking in. I felt like Rocky Balboa and Apollo Creed just took turns pummeling the crap out of my stomach.
It’s irrational. I’m crazy to care this much about sports. After tough losses like this, I sometimes wish that I cared less. I would like to be able to just go for a walk then yell at my dog for a while and be able to quickly feel better. But the walks just increase my blood pressure, making me more irritable and I don’t even have a dog, so that doesn’t work. Alas, I am forced to grit my teeth and endure, free of any pain-relieving savior.
So after all the heartache, what keeps me coming back? Perhaps my daily routines have become so saturated with sports watching that I have essentially become addicted. Maybe subconsciously I’m some of sort of twisted masochist. Most likely, I continue to follow sports because I am drawn to the possibility that maybe, just maybe, my team will wind up on the winning side of one of those gut-wrenchingly close finishes.
Actually, the Bulls secured such a victory in game three, just two days prior to the devastating loss. Upon seeing Derrick Rose bank home that game-winning buzzer beater, I experienced all those extreme emotions, but from the opposite end of the spectrum. That time it was pure bliss.
Once again the feelings were totally illogical. Just as with the pain, it was crazy to derive such great joy from a team, completely oblivious to my existence, winning a game as I watched on my 32 inch (I’m not braggin’) TV.
That’s just the nature of the beast. From one game’s irrational heartbreak to another game’s irrational bliss, we care too much about sports. Despite this awareness, I have no intentions of changing my ways. I’ll love my teams until the day I die.
It’s not crazy, it’s sports. But it’s also pretty freakin’ crazy.
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