"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