ya gotta believe: another unpleasant super bowl sunday

Joe Namath comes through for the Jets in 1970 Super Bowl (courtesy NFL Photos)

Another Super Bowl Sunday, another championship game where my team won’t win. I’m kinda used to it.

I’ve been a Rangers/Knicks/Mets/Jets fan since I was a little kid. In the past two hundred seasons, since May 10, 1973, those four teams have won a total of two championships. In four sports. Over the course of fifty miserable years.

The football Giants won four titles during that time, 1987, 1991, 2008, and 2012, as have the hated Islanders, 1980-83. (Even the Devils have taken three Cups back to Jersey, in 1995, 2000, and 2003.)

My parents were Brooklyn Dodgers fans — when they were dating, they would walk to Ebbets Field, sit in the bleachers, and root for Dem Bums. I was raised to hate the Yankees, and still do today. The Dodgers captured only one title, in 1955, destroying the Spankees, who beat Brooklyn in the 1952, 1953, and 1956 World Series. Since May 10, 1973, the Yankees have won seven championships, 1977, 1978, 1996, 1998, 1999, and 2009.

New York Mets sign man Karl Ehrhardt never gave up (photo courtesy Associated Press)

Oh, and 2000, when they toppled my Mets, 4 games to 1. Man, was that extra painful, as I’m in a mixed marriage; my wife is a Yankees (and Giants) fan. We actually divided the couch in two when watching that Subway Series to prevent either of us giving aid and comfort to the enemy, a treasonous offense. (She’s a big Rangers fan; I would not have been able to marry a Fish Sticks or Devils devotee.)

The Jets upset the heavily favored Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III on January 12, 1969, at the Orange Bowl, behind Joe Willie Namath and his promise of victory. Since then, Gang Green has had a mere sixteen seasons above .500, losing in the AFC Championship game four times.

Even my backup gridiron team, the Minnesota Vikings, have been a disaster, losing four Super Bowls in eight years between 1970 and 1977, and they haven’t been back to the big game since.

The New York Knickerbockers brought home titles in 1970 and 1973, both times beating the Los Angeles Lakers. The Knicks made a great run in 1994, ultimately losing to the Houston Rockets in seven games. They’ve gotten past the first round of the playoffs only once in the last twenty-two years, missing the postseason sixteen times.

So in the last half century, I’ve been able to celebrate when the Mets beat the Boston Red Sox 8-5 in Game 7 of the World Series at Shea Stadium on October 26, 1986, and when the Broadway Blues defeated the Vancouver Canucks 3-2 in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals at Madison Square Garden on June 14, 1994.

I attended both Game 7s, two of the greatest nights of my life.

Tough Rangers forward Nick Kypreos lifts the Cup after Game 7 win at the Garden

Following the Rangers triumph, their first Cup in fifty-four years, I immediately bought the “Now I Can Die in Peace” T-shirt, but the declaration turned out not to be true. The last twenty-nine years have been sports hell.

When it comes right down to it, winning is great. Losing sucks. I mean, it really sucks. Especially when it seems like everyone around you is winning. All the time.

That can be said about so many parts of life, but there’s nothing quite like losing in sports.

According to Thriveworks, a professional counseling company whose mission is “to help people live happy and successful lives,” here is why “sports fan depression isn’t trivial”:

·      Because your personal and social identity is wrapped up in the team, you can feel as if you lost part of yourself when the team loses.

·      You’re dependent on an outcome that’s entirely out of your control, which can make you feel helpless.

·      You have the delusion that you could have controlled the outcome, which makes you feel responsible.

·      You can’t commiserate directly with the players because they’re all millionaires.

So I’ll keep rooting for the Rangers, Knicks, Mets, and Jets; I’m nothing if not loyal, sports fan depression be damned.

Every year I begin each season believing that this will at last be the one, that my teams will overcome that injury, that bad trade, that terrible draft choice, that awful coach, that inconsistent star, and come together and surprise everyone.

Except me. I never had a doubt.

Hey, ya gotta believe.