Poor Sports Fan Is Toy of the Fates--but What the Heck

The pitcher was shellshocked. The center fielder writhed in agony on the outfield grass. In the bleachers, pain was written on every line of the fans’ faces.

‘Tis a sad thing when sports misery comes calling.

It’s a knock-on-the-door I know all too well, which is why I sympathize with the South Mission Viejo Little Leaguers and their fans, all of whom suffered a loss most foul last Saturday in the championship game. Not foul in the “we wuz robbed” sense, but in the way the fates played with their hearts. Not content simply to have the boys lose, the fates decided to get cruel with them.

To have so much tied up in the outcome of a game and then to lose . . . well, it is a fierce pain.

Some of you are shaking your heads at this point and wondering what in the heck I’m blubbering about. How can someone who went to college be this vapid? I understand your disdain.

This little treatise, however, is for a more specific audience:

* For those who don’t know why they invest so much emotion into their favorite teams but still do.

* For those who know that making deals with God doesn’t really affect their team’s chances but still do.

* For those who don’t understand why their lives seem much better when their team is winning but know that it is.

My affection afflictions are with the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Nebraska Cornhuskers. I grew up in Nebraska, so that loyalty is understandable. My Pirates’ attachment defies any logical reason. I never lived in Pittsburgh, but I adopted the Pirates as “my team” in 1958, and no native Pittsburgher is a more fervent or annoyingly theatrical fan than I.

Closer to home, Angels fans are contemplating whether to invest themselves in the team or not. Spotty attendance is linked to the team having let them down before. I suppose they’re talking about 1986 when the Angels were one out away from going to the World Series when one of sports’ cruelest moments unfolded.

Cruel for the Angels, that is. For the Boston Red Sox, who prospered from the Angels’ pain, it was a fateful twist of unbridled joy.

But if you think the Red Sox are lucky, you don’t know baseball. This is a team whose fans believe the team has been playing under a curse since the team sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees in 1920. It should be noted the Red Sox haven’t won the World Series since 1918 and have lost some in quite perverse ways.

Take 1986, for example.

With two outs and nobody on base in what would have been the clinching sixth game, the Sox watched as the New York Mets began a rally that would win that game and the next game (and series), as well.

A Red Sox fan and friend of mine is well aware of the curse. He remembers watching the sixth game of the ’86 Series and having champagne on ice. A friend telephoned him to share the final glorious moments, but my friend knew better: “As my buddy was chattering in my ear on the phone, I was watching intently for the anticipated collapse.”

True to the curse, the collapse came.

Why do we do this to ourselves? Why not just walk away?

Psychologist Marc Becker, a former Chicagoan who practices in Anaheim Hills, explains it this way: “One of the ways you can look at it, psychologically, is that people attach themselves to sports teams much like they attach themselves in love relationships. And what happens, especially if you look at people who become over-involved with a team or who devote rooms to memorabilia or watch every game or travel to all sorts of away games, they’ve got a fantasy that is filling some kind of a need.”

Because we mythologize both our teams and individual players, Becker says, the payoffs we get from victory can be elating.

Yes, but what about the excruciating loss? Is there a way to divest ourselves emotionally and spare those feelings?

Becker says we could walk away--if we really wanted to. “I think you’re hooked unless you make a conscious effort to figure out why you’re hooked,” he says. “There’s lots of vicarious thrill associated with [sports loyalty]. It’s a very safe way to enjoy something from a distance. In a way, it’s a form of voyeurism.”

Yes, doc, but what can we do for this pain?

“Don’t you think,” he says, “that somehow we need to experience suffering on some level to feel human?”

That must be it. We don’t walk away because we want a shot at the euphoria. And we’re willing to risk the pain, because pain is part of life.

So, my advice to Angels fans as the stretch run approaches is this:

Throw yourselves into the Angels and hope that you get to experience one of life’s great pleasures.

But, please, prepare yourselves for the suffering. If nothing else, it’ll make you feel alive.

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by calling (714) 966-7821 or by writing to him at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or by e-mail to dana.parsons@latimes.com