Another chance to celebrate slips away

10/7/07
It shouldn’t matter.
What are the New York Mets to me? Twenty-five people I’ve never met and who have never given me a second thought. Why should their collective actions affect me?
But they do. A team I’ve followed since the fifth grade, I watched them blow what should have been an insurmountable seven-game lead in two weeks and miss the playoffs. It was like a slow-motion train wreck. Each day I asked myself, “They can’t really blow this, can they?”
But they did, which brought a new round of asking myself why I care in the first place. I can’t change what happens on the field; I can’t take credit for their accomplishments or blame for their shortfalls. But somehow, it still matters.
If it didn’t matter, I wouldn’t have been accepting people’s condolences all week as though I’d just lost a close friend.
If it didn’t matter, I wouldn’t have been obsessively checking scores on my cell phone every time I was out of the house as the season wound down, wondering how yet another 3-0 lead had turned into an 8-4 loss.
If it didn’t matter, I wouldn’t bother reminding Yankee fans that they ought to think really hard before bringing up words like “historic collapse.” Losing a series after being three outs away from a sweep — that’s one that will stand up for a while.
Most people develop a connection with a team for one of two reasons — either it was passed down from a family member or the team was good when you started paying attention. For me, it was a bit of both. I started watching baseball soon after the 1986 World Series, which the Mets won, and I was crushed when the Dodgers’ Orel Hershiser shut my team out in Game 7 of the ’88 National League Championship Series.
People identify with their team, and then they take it a step further. They start thinking they really do play a part in what happens, as though the team’s failure is a fan’s failure, and the team’s success is a sign of personal virtue. Note the widespread use of the word “we” when discussing a group of strangers.
People seemed to expect me to feel ashamed this season as the end drew near, as though I was playing a part in it. Was it my fault the bullpen couldn’t get anyone out for a month?
Similarly, during the back-and-forth banter that goes on among fans, someone was overheard in the newsroom this week saying, “The Yankees aren’t afraid of the Red Sox,” or something to that effect. What can that possibly mean? Did this fan burrow into Joe Torre’s brain and determine his state of mind?
My team is good, therefore I am good. Your team blew a seven-game lead, so you have failed.
Still, taking the wide view, it makes a lot more sense to talk about health care or when the Iran war is going to start or something fun like that. Why do we care about sports?
The best explanation I can come up with concerns the only other team I let myself get bent out of shape about, the UConn men’s basketball team. I’ve been with them for a while, but my peak fan years came during my eight semesters as a student in Storrs.
I’m not ashamed to admit that a Monday night in late March of 1999 was one of the best days of my life. Surrounded by four years’ worth of friends and acquaintances, we watched UConn beat its longtime nemesis, Duke, in one of the best national title games in history. It wasn’t decided until the clock read 0:00, and then the campus exploded.
And it wasn’t one of those “call the riot police” ways that Storrs is sometimes known for, but a genuine outpouring of communal happiness. People would run into someone they knew vaguely from a class three years before and they’d start hugging like they were old friends.
It’s that kind of celebration every sports fan hopes for. When you follow a team your whole life, through disappointments and setbacks and everything else, and then your team wins it all, there’s nothing like it.
If I live to 100, that ’99 title will probably stand as my No. 1 moment as a sports fan, just because it all came together in one place — my school, senior year, big underdogs, close game, top rivals on the other side. UConn winning a second title five years later was great, but nothing like the first one. Still, though, a great time to celebrate with friends.
And that’s what it comes down to. There was a chance, maybe a small one, I’d get another victory celebration this year. Once you get a taste of that feeling, or see someone else get it, you know what you’re missing the next time around. And when your team falls short, it hurts.

Hugh S. Bailey is assistant editorial page editor at the Connecticut Post. You can reach him at 203-330-6233 or via e-mail at hbailey@ctpost.com.