It's Another One of Those Mornings

And here we are again.

It seems several times – usually three or so – each year we are reminded again that we’re Philly sports fans. No, it’s not when we have to sit through CSN’s Ransom CAT Countdown to Something, or when we’re inundated with pictures of coked up strippers feeding fat guys wings, or when we’re forced to debate whether this time the Flyers will fill their coaching vacancy with someone whose professional existence wasn’t nourished on the OB Kool-Aid. No, it’s none of those common things. They are mere ancillary distractions to the freak show that is Philly sports, which forces us to live a few mornings like this one every year, feeling like we just got punched in the gut and hating ourselves for allowing our minds to wander into territory that even vaguely resembled anything positive.

Yes, it’s the hangover feeling that comes after a [devastating defeat] [crushing disappointment] [embarrassing implosion], when we realize just how foolish we were to let ourselves get carried away with the possibility that one of our teams was going to [win it all] [sign or draft a big-name player] [not embarrass itself]. All along, we knew the odds were slightly against us, but still, there remained a realistic enough possibility that we threw all caution to the wind and convinced ourselves that [this would be the year] [this time would be different]. It’s a Mad Lib of Philly sports fandom– just insert your subject [here], your verb [here], and your self-loathing adjective of choice [here].

This time, it was the Eagles’ failure or inability to trade up for Marcus Mariota, whose acquisition, when you think about it in the context of reports and rumors – one of which, accurate or not, claimed the Eagles offered two number one picks, a number three, Fletcher Cox, and some combination of Brandon Boykin, Mychal Kendricks and Sam Bradford – would’ve been kind of nuts. If that was the price to pay, then yeah, maybe it would’ve been too much and it’s best that Chip was able to display some level of restraint. But, that does nothing to ease the disappointment we feel over it not happening.

Some texts I received last night:

And my friend who opted to go see The Avengers over watching the NFL Draft because he’s a big loser:

No, there’s not.

It seems success around here is always just out of reach. Nothing illustrates this better than three-straight NFC Championship losses followed by a Super Bowl loss. But there are other examples: The Flyers’ existence, Iverson vs. the Lakers, the ’93 Phils, basically all of our college basketball teams when they get to the tournament, and even Smarty Jones. In fact, that last one, the horse, may be the best example of all. For a month around here, we all fell in love with some creature we’d never heard of just a few weeks earlier. It was that equine’s loss that, for me, at age 20 or so, hammered home the point that being a sports fan around here was just always going to be miserable. Seriously, it took a fucking horse for me to ask myself: What am I doing here? I imagine we all have had similar moments of sad self-reflection. But then, once the string of [whatever the fuck] wears off, we’re right back on the now-proverbial horse, riding head-on into our next [crushing blow] [squandered opportunity] [maddening loss] [historic collapse] [tragic, quarterback-puking, 2-2 slider-throwing, Claude Lemieux-ing, concussion-filled, Achilles-tearing disaster].

This is why the 2007-2011 Phillies were so beloved. Besides the obvious (winning the World Series), this was a group that continually exceeded expectations– winning the division in 2007… winning the World Series in 2008… becoming big-time buyers at the trade deadline, going back to the World Series, and trading for Roy Halladay in 2009… a perfect game, playoff no-hitter, and signing Cliff Lee in 2010… the dominant 2011 season. No other team in my lifetime consistently amazed us the way that group did. But that’s it. Everyone else – literally, everyone – has let us down on so many levels that this feeling has become expected. The norm, even. In fact, yesterday, despite all of our (my) Mariota hysteria, I actually thought about how to approach this post, because I knew it was coming, knew I was going to have to get up, pour a cup of hot, much-needed coffee, and drag myself to my little communication box and write words about how much this fucking sucks.