Kick Out the Sports!
by Bob Cook

Bob Cook's weekly ruminations on sports appear Mondays in Flak.

So it's been nearly a week, and you're still depressed over John Kerry losing the presidency and the Democrats' general electoral pasting. Your food tastes funny, your water tastes acidic and the air smells rotten. You blame it on President Bush using his alleged mandate to gut what few environmental protections remained. But you know in your heart you're absorbing the overwhelming flavors of bitterness and despair. You are convinced this feeling will last forever, defined as at least another four years.

If the preceding paragraph describes your current mental state, you probably are not a sports fan.

For if you were, a lifetime of disappointment from your favorite teams would have prepared you to deal with this sort of devastating loss. Only one team can win a title, and chances are good it won't be yours, especially if you live in Cleveland. And really, as Democrats, you should be used to losing, what with the election scorecard since 1952 reading R-9, D-5.

If you think it's trivial to compare the future of our country, the health of our economy, the makeup of our Supreme Court and the continued governmental employment of John Ashcroft to some dumb sports team, ask a fan of the blue-state Buffalo Bills which was harder to take — Kerry's losing one presidential race, or the Bills losing four straight Super Bowls.

So forget Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, your therapist or Canada, and let a sports fan guide you through how to deal with the grief and loss of being on the wrong side of victory.

Step one: Realize why this hurts more than 2000

You're not wrong — your feelings of loss are different than when Bush beat Al Gore in 2000. That's because a loss is always easier to take if you think — if you know — the refs screwed you. For example, in 1999, my Indiana Pacers lost in the NBA Eastern Conference finals to the New York Knicks because referee Dick Bavetta made a late-game foul call on Antonio Davis, even though he clearly did not touch Larry Johnson as he shot and made a 3-pointer, allowing Johnson a four-point play. The Pacers did not lose to the Knicks because they were the inferior team. They lost because freakin' KNICK BAVETTA was in the tank for New York! Just like the freakin' SUPREME COURT was in the tank for Bush! A loss is much easier to accept when your side seems to have no responsibility for it.

Alas, 2004 was much different. This time, Bush won (presumably) fair and square. Like how my Indiana Pacers — whose flawless fundamental play, attention to the little things that don't show up in the box score and team spirit represented all that was good and right in basketball — got shoved aside by the Los Angeles Lakers' big, dumb lummox and his selfish, evil sidekick in the 2000 NBA finals. That hurt much worse, because it was obvious the Lakers, although wrong in every way, still had a better-performing team. As hard as it is to admit, while Kerry had all that was good and right on his side, he didn't have Karl Rove running the point for him.

Step two: Get angry — at your side

Part of how Kerry voters have tried to deal with their pain is to get upset at Bush, Cheney, Rove, evangelicals, "security moms" or whoever was responsible for the Republican victories. But sports fans have learned the best way, and the most productive way, to recovery is to blame everything on your own side.

Take a cue from sports-talk radio callers — demand someone be fired! Terry McAuliffe, the chairman of the Democratic party — how could he allow such a stiff as Kerry to get nominated? Joe Lockhart, campaign adviser — obviously, when he worked for President Clinton, Clinton supplied the magic to Lockhart, and not vice versa. Ben Affleck — he tainted the Kerry campaign with the stink of Gigli. Or play Monday Morning Campaigner — why didn't Kerry even try to get Arkansas? Why didn't he show up at churches more often? Who thought putting a trial lawyer on the ticket would actually help?

Remember — as a voter/fan, you cannot control the opposition, but you can at least raise a stink about your side. Campaigns/teams claim they don't listen to the rabble, but they do.

Step three: Realize the world will not end

Understandably, a sense of perspective is easier to come by at a sporting event than a presidential campaign. After all, there's not a sense that an 18-year-old will get sent to Iraq and die because the Philadelphia Eagles couldn't make it past the NFC championship game again.

However, what keeps sports fans going, even fans of the Milwaukee Brewers, is hope. Hope that the next season, your young players will come through. Hope that the new coach has some bright ideas that will spark the talent already on your team. Hope that if you hang in there long enough, your loyalty will be rewarded. Hope that while you're hanging in there, things won't go totally wrong. After all, when Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980, a lot of people thought he'd start a nuclear war, and that didn't happen, right?

Now even though Boston Red Sox fans every season hope for the New York Yankees to come down with a collective brain aneurysm, hoping for bad things to happen to benefit your side is wrong. Is it really worth regaining the White House if interest rates spike, the housing market bubbles and millions of Americans are sunk in total and utter poverty and despair?

Well, maybe. But it's better to hope that the Democrats have somebody in the minor leagues who can cut across the red state-blue state divide. Or that the party develops a strategy to attract moral-values voters without selling out Democratic ideals. That sort of hope begins in the offseason, which, for election purposes, is where we are now. Once you can get to this point, you know you will have found a productive way to channel the emotions you feel after Kerry's loss.

Of course, that hope may end up only being a set-up for an ever more heart-rending disappointment in 2008. But you can't think that way. I have hope the Indiana Pacers can win the NBA title this year, despite all available evidence showing they cannot.

Believing that tomorrow is going to be different, and has to be better, is what being a sports fan — and these days, a Democrat — is all about.

E-mail Bob Cook at bobc@flakmag.com.