Sadness and Relief

It’s looking like my Braves won’t make it to the playoffs again this year. It could still happen, but it’s looking less & less likely. And my adopted team, the Reds, won’t be there either. That’s not all that unexpected – although they’re playing pretty good baseball right now.

As usual, at this time of year, when none of “my” teams is in the playoffs I’m filled with sadness & relief. Bittersweet I guess. I’m sad because we won’t get to watch these teams play ever again. Sure Chipper will probably still be with the Braves next year & Bronson will most likely still pitch for the Reds, but these particular teams won’t play again. There’ll be trades, and players designated for assignment, and whippersnappers up from the minor leagues. And for heaven’s sake hopefully some good pitching will be acquired! It’ll be fun & exciting, and at first every team will be headed to the playoffs.

But I’m relieved to have the “will they win or won’t they” tension gone from my shoulders. I’ll get to pull for teams indiscriminately – probably based on who the current underdog is (this is also my strategy in the NCAA basketball tournament). I will boo the Yankees and Cardinals, but pull for almost anyone else. And it’s exciting because who knows what will happen? Probably the Yankees or Cardinals will win the World Series – but you never know! And it’s a bit liberating to not have to watch “my” team play, breath bated, all that awful agony.

I know, I’m weird. And Dr. M is going to have some choice words to say about all this once I hit Post. He never thinks it’s a good thing when our team doesn’t make it to the playoffs. And don’t we all know that part of my relief is watching his disappointment now & not his sadness later (which may or may not be accompanied by choice words and flinging of inanimate objects – a Wake Forest basketball game years ago resulted in a duct taped TV remote).

It’s hard to watch the ones we love suffer & not be able to fix it. Yeah, not really talking about baseball now – love you sweetie.