Angels give away players, lose badly

Thanks Nishiogawakun. It’s crazy because, truly, it really is “just a game.” So why did I care so effing much? It got to the point this year where I just sorta felt like, “Why do I do this to myself every damned year?” I should be more like Twebur, above, the Browns fan.

There are sooooo many reasons I broke and you guys know about all of ’em. But if someone asked “Why aren’t you following the Angels? You always talk about them. They’re your team, right?” My first answer would be something like, “Dude: we had Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani for years and STILL managed to finish below .500 over and over and over. Do you realize how embarrassing that is?” Etc.

I wish I could get myself to believe in some sort of “curse” but I’ve marinated in too much logic and science since childhood. Is it the owner? Hard to see how he’s the reason they’re soooo bad, year after damned year. Arte certainly doesn’t help the situation, that’s for sure. But I don’t see how he’s the reason.

I just…don’t know, man. I had to put a (temporary) end to my Angels jones. Because this season? Yea, it broke me. It really did. Not proud to say it, but there it is. Why do we let our team break our heart? Why can’t I have a more healthy perspective? It’s my own fault. No one ever forced me to be an Angels fan. I did it to myself, and I guess there were enough payoffs to continue.

Guys like Downing Dude seem to be able to take the bad with the bad with the bad (and every now and then: the good) with an even keel. I should be more like that. But I’m not.

There’s a bunch of literature on sports fandom. If your team is a loser, you can fall prey to the idea that you’re a loser too, for following the losers. It doesn’t makes sense, cuz it really is, as I said, just a damned game.

Watched Game 7 in a very crowded sports bar in Santa Monica in 2002. Erstad makes the catch…and I’m walking out, with my bros and…I felt like I was walking on air. It was the very meaning of elated. This had actually happened: the Angels won the World Series. I never really believed it would happen. But it did! I’d been an Angels fan for 32 years at that point, and they were mostly a joke. But now they’d won the World Series! All of the suffering was redeemed, somehow.

Now? I don’t know anymore. I really don’t. I live in the Bay Area now and I watch Giants games. I like their announcers. And locals who grew up here who love the Giants are mostly cool people in my experience, There are a-holes, of course. But when the Angels played them I wanted us to kill the Giants. It’s incurable. I’ll be back in the Spring. Probably…