By JJ Bowman
News Editor
I never felt April was the cruelest month. It’s supposed to fill avid baseball fans like myself with the hope that this year can be different, or for Anaheim Angels fans (if any remain from the “Great Bandwagon Jump of 2002”), that this season can provide a repeat performance.
In fact, during Monday’s Opening Day games, I planned to discuss that hope from a fan’s perspective. I saw the eternally mediocre Chicago Cubs, under the guidance of new manager Dusty Baker, pound a 15-2 victory over the Mets.
Also, Pedro Martinez seemed poised to retake his claim as the most awe-inspiring pitcher of my lifetime and the best player my Boston Red Sox team has ever had, as he dominated in his Opening Day start.
The Cubs finished the day looking golden, but with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, the Red Sox blew a three-run lead to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, quite possibly the worst sports franchise east of the Los Angeles Clippers.
So instead of writing about the opportunities a fresh baseball season provides I only wanted to speak about the stupidity of Red Sox management for not having a closer on the roster by opening day (even though I fully supported the decision only hours before).
Instead of acknowledging that spring has ushered in endless possibilities of improvement for my life and for my team, I could only think about another cold, defeated winter on the horizon.
With this gloomy outlook overtaking me at least until the next Red Sox victory, I decided to prod a more depressing subject matter: Sox and Cubs fans.
After years of suffering through Red Sox slides, I developed a morbid curiosity for the other fans who have suffered so badly, yet take their lumps so differently.
Cubs fans exemplify psychologist Martin Seligman’s theory of “learned helplessness.” After giving dogs a shock treatment with no way of escaping and then later providing them an easy way out, Seligman discovered over time (and pain), the dogs just didn’t care anymore. They sat down and accepted the punishment.
But if you think that’s cruel, try watching your team fall short of a championship 94 years in a row. Since they have not even seen their team make it to the Fall Classic since 1945, the majority of Cubs fans I speak with don’t even exhibit a “this is our year” attitude. Instead there’s a tacit acceptance that mediocrity will continue, and anyone
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“I knew it was going to be a close play at first because the guy (Wilson) runs so well. The ball went skip, skip, skip and didn’t come up. The ball missed my glove. I can’t remember the last time I missed a ball like that, but I’ll remember that one.” — Buckner on Wilson’s ground ball |
who refutes this claim by pointing out how raucous Cubs fans cheer their team at Wrigley Field 81 times each year underestimate the power of alcohol to dull someone’s pain.
The Red Sox fans, however, suffer a pain similar to Charlie Brown’s every time Lucy placed a football before his feet. Each time, we honestly think we will kick the football, and each time, Lucy (or in the case of the Red Sox, George Steinbrenner, Bob Stanley, Tim Tschida or a cold and unloving God) always get the best of us.
Since the last Cubs World Series defeat in 1945, the Red Sox have lost four straight series in the deciding game seven. But the intoxicating aroma of the unattainable victory keeps fans on emotional roller coasters on each pitch of each game, unable to gain any perspective on a very long season.
Thus, as I hit every possible emotion during the first game of the year, I step back and offer a prayer: May Cubs fans escape the conviction that their team will fail and may Sox fans understand that the season means more than just one game. Unless that game is the seventh of the World Series. And unless you’re one strike away from beating the Mets for the 1986 championship.
Now, if you excuse me, I need to vomit.
— If you were a hot dog, would you eat yourself? E-mail JJ Bowman at jjbowman@pepperdine.edu.
April 03, 2003
