The Ol' Ballfield

Apologies to All Mets Fans...

...for posting this, but there's a lot about this video that I love:



First of all, it's a classic moment every baseball fan remembers (mostly because it was only four months ago... four months?! Is that all?!) from a different angle. And even though it's on video, watching such an important pitch from that angle really reminds you of what it's like to be at a game, and a game like that. Secondly, there's the huge crowd buildup and then... red herring. Mets lose. What deflation. And finally, nothing like the guys around the cameraman, going through the six out-of-order, circular stages of sports-related grief:

1) Stunned silence. (Denial)
2) Booing. (Anger)
3) "Cardinals are going to the World Series." (Acceptance)
4) "Hope your plane crashes!" (Bargaining [with a hint of malice])
5) "This sucks." (Depression)
6) "I'm not watching this." (Denial)

After constructing this list, it really does strike me that denial comes at the beginning and at the end for sports fans, probably because there's always a new season coming (except for fans of any NHL team but Tampa Bay in 2004).

Case in point: My former boss, a Yankees fan, turned off his TV before Luis Gonzalez's game-winning single off Mariano Rivera hit the ground, and then avoided ESPN for a week afterwards. He claims still never to have seen the Texas-leaguer land. A couple years later, when the Yankees went back to BankOne (Chase?) for an interleague matchup, I remarked, "It's going to be tough to get a game in around all their former selves still frozen in time," just to make him feel better.

THEORY REVISION: In some cases anger comes before denial, as evidenced by my hat that no longer has a top-button, or my buddy's 135-degree angle TV antenna.

DISCLAIMER: I hereby pre-emptively rebut all charges that this rips off Bill Simmons' "Levels of Losing" column. 1) This is a different idea, and 2) Bill Simmons blows.

By the way, ya gotta love the guy that says "Hope your plane crashes!" I classified it as "bargaining" because honestly, the idea of the Cardinals' plane crashing is about the only thing that would make that guy feel better right now.

Labels: 2001 World Series, 2006 NLCS, sports grief

posted by Carnival @ 2/24/2007