"You love the Red Sox, but have the Red Sox ever loved you back?"

(I promise I'm not becoming a sports blog. I just have been thinking a lot about sports lately. I'll write about cute furry animals or something next week to make up for it.)

Loving a sports team is almost always a heartbreaking experience at the end of the season. Every year only 1 team's fans are truly satisfied. Oftentimes when I see my favorite teams lose in the playoffs, I find myself wishing that they just hadn't made it to the playoffs at all. (I remember reading this article when the Patriots lost the Superbowl in 2012 and feeling pretty crappy afterwards.)

Being dedicated to a sports team can take up a lot of time, effort and money: reading articles, watching the actual game, celebrating or mourning the outcome of the game, watching their rivals games, celebrating or mourning the outcome of those games, buying their memorabilia, buying tickets to the games, etc. It can be exhausting.

And for what gain? This is what people who don't love a sports team always ask. What do you get out of this? As they said in the wonderfully terrible movie Fever Pitch with Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore: "You love the Red Sox, but have the Red Sox ever loved you back?"

When people ask this question, they ask it rhetorically because they think the obvious answer is no. Big Papi has no idea who I am, so how could he possibly love me?

But while the obvious answer is no, the correct answer is actually yes. Sports teams, in general, absolutely love their fans, in general. They talk about us all the time. They love playing at their home arena or field because we are there rooting for them. They hate playing at other people's arenas or fields because we aren't there. Their teams wouldn't exist as they know them if it wasn't for our support. They need us to be interested in them, and to love them.

Loving a sports team is no less reciprocal than your average relationship. Lots of relationships out there aren't perfectly aligned--one person may give more sometimes, or one person may love the other a little bit more, or one person may be more dedicated. But it takes a lot of crap before your friends start to ask you what you're really gaining from the relationship. (Sometimes in extreme cases you suspect that the other person may just be a sociopath who doesn't care about anyone, cough cough, Manny Ramirez.)

So, you may think it's dumb when people get upset over their favorite team losing in the playoffs, just as much as you may think it's dumb when your friend is all bent out of shape over his or her crappy relationship coming to an end, but in the latter case you usually at least fake some empathy for them. So why not at least muster up some fake empathy when it comes to sports heartbreak too?

I'll leave you with this quote from John Elway that proves that sports heartbreak goes both ways. They just want us to love them, too, guys!!


"There is no fall as far as when you lose the Super Bowl. The second you lose, you drop all the way back to the bottom, down there with every other team that played that season. It's like you did nothing. The minute it's over, they literally start bumping you out of the way to set up the ropes and the award stand. It's like, 'Uh, can you move, please? We've got some people to celebrate here.'"
-John Elway

Inner Monologue of a Could-Be Sportscaster

Note: This blog post was originally supposed to be about how I could be a sportscaster because most of the stuff they say is dumb and obvious and I think I could do better. But halfway through, I started to realize that it probably wasn't true. So I began to argue with myself. And instead of just deleting this post and starting over, I've decided to just let you see what it's like to be inside my brain for a couple of minutes. Enjoy.

You know how sometimes you look at someone else's really cool or high-paying job and you think to yourself, "I could totally do that!"?

There are usually two things that prompt you to say something like that:
1.) The job looks so simple that surely anyone with a brain could perform it
2.) The person who currently has the job is so terrible at it that you are convinced you couldn't possibly do any worse than they do.

When I watch sports, I can't help but think about #2 as I listen to the sportscasters.

When I was younger and didn't care as much about sports, I would listen to the sportscasters and think that they knew everything. But then I got older, watched games more often, and realized that it was more just the fact that I knew nothing that made them seem like they knew everything.

The vast majority of what they say is so painfully obvious that it's actually comical:

"I cannot stress enough the importance of every player playing their best in these playoff games."

"They really need to score here."

Or, they are spouting the most random statistics that have no actual meaning:

"This is the 5th time in the past 6 seasons that this team has been trailing by 7 or more points with 10 minutes left in the 2nd quarter."

Now, the thing is, while part of me is fairly certain that I could be a better sportscaster than at least half of all the people on the air, the other part of me asks, "well, how would you do that Jenny?"

And the answer is that I have no idea. I'm sure I would say the same dumb stuff they all say because it's hard to talk for 3 hours straight and not say something unintelligent or uninformed or stupid sounding. Sometimes I can't even say a single sentence without sounding like that. Like when someone wishes me a happy birthday and I say "Thanks! You too!" ...that's only 3 words and I still manage to mess it up.

Although, then again, I'm not getting paid to speak to people. Maybe I'd be more on top of my game if I were.

Note: The positive thing about this circular argument is that I now know what I'd do for my on-air act. I'd just argue with myself like I do in this blog. I'd be like those two heckling muppets but you'd only have to pay for one of me!

See?? I could totally do this sportscaster stuff.


"And then I said to myself, 'Kyle,' ....That's what I call myself. Kyle."
-Eric Matthews, Boy Meets World

Baby Steps to Self-Improvement

Awhile back, I wrote about useless verbal filler, and how I cringe when I say terrible things like, "alrighty then."

Along those lines, I'm realizing that there are lots of other little things that I say or do that I really wish I didn't. These things don't keep me up at night or anything. It's more just that every time I find myself doing or saying these things, I sigh a little bit to myself and silently (and falsely) vow to never do or say that ever again, and then I move on.

For example, I wish I didn't:

• Say "OOH sorry!!" every time I bump into someone, or even when they bump into me
• Yawn without covering my mouth
• Yell "wooo!" when I slip, trip, stumble or fall
• Say "me too!" whenever someone says they're tired
• Become a stuttering spaz every time I answer my phone at work
• Respond to compliments by saying something like, "Oh this piece of crap shirt? I got it at Target."
• Forget to put someone's address in my phone after promising to myself, "THIS time I'm going to put their address into my phone!"
• Put my phone on my lap while driving, only to then get out of my car, forgetting my phone is on my lap, and have it crash all the way to the pavement
• Use ellipses...in every tweet that I write (seriously, go check out my Twitter. I have a problem.)
• Ever talk about how many calories I'm consuming. I'm already eating them, so the damage is done. Plus, no one cares.
• Excessively use "haha" in all forms of online communication

That list is not comprehensive, but it's a good start.

Maybe I'll just focus on tackling two or three every week. If I can go one whole week without errant use of "haha" or "ooh sorry!" I would call that week a success.

Baby steps, people, baby steps.

"...I have really bad breath in the morning?"

"Ew."

-Mean Girls