Watts Family

As many of you are, I’m sure, well aware, I follow the sport of baseball with a certain zeal. As each January comes to an end every year, I feel a twinge of excitement knowing that pitchers and catchers report to spring training in less than a month, this year it’s February 13th to be exact, but who’s counting. This year it means even more given the incredibly harsh winter we’ve had here in Chicago as being merely a symbol that spring does actually exist, and it will get warmer soon, but that’s a completely different issue.

So, back to baseball. Sometimes I think I may like the sport a little too much, follow it a little too closely. A majority of the time, I quickly dismiss this thought as being absurd. How could I not? It’s America’s pastime? However, something happened recently that made me second guess my extreme loyalty to the game. (Don’t worry, it didn’t last too long, just much longer than it normally does.)

I was at the gym a few nights ago at my hotel in Atlanta pumping some mad iron. A show called “5 Reasons You Can’t Blame….” on ESPN came on the big TV. I’ve seen this before, I enjoy the show, it just goes through 5 reasons you can’t blame things in sports on what seems would be the most likely culprit. For example, why you can’t blame the Bills for losing 4 straight super bowls, or the American League for using the DH, or Bobby Cox for the Braves repeated postseason failures, things like that. This episode was titled, “5 Reasons You Can’t Blame Steve Bartman for the Cubs losing”. My first instinct was to be excited that something baseball related was on, even better something about my Cubs. WRONG! I didn’t even make it through the introduction. Watching Mark Prior blow through the Marlins for 7 innings, then a double, then Bartman, then a walk, then a hit, then Gonzalez boots a double play ball, and then hit after hit after hit. While Dusty “the human toothpick” Baker sits on the bench and lets 23 year old Prior just get pummeled. Horrible, just horrible. I had to politely ask the others in the gym if I could change the channel, luckily nobody asked for my reasons why.

I thought I had completely put October of 2003 behind me. I had to turn my phone off for a few days to avoid the constant harassment from friends after another disastrous Cubs collapse. That night in the gym, however, proved me wrong. It brought back painful memories that felt all too real. As if it were happening again.

Now, to the point of all this rambling. Am I too emotionally invested? Is it abnormal to let a simple game cause so much emotional strife, or on the opposite end, happiness? (I haven’t experienced much of the latter since about 1994 when the 49ers actually fielded a real football team). I guess we’ll see, but I highly doubt anything will change.

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