sports fan

This is about sports, and yet it has more to do with my personality.

When I was younger I was a huge fan of the Detroit Tigers and Lions because I lived in Michigan when I first became interested in sports. I didn't care for basketball or hockey, so I never grew too attached to the Pistons or the Red Wings. It's really a shame because then I might know what it is like to root for a winning team.

Throughout the past fifteen years both the Lions and Tigers have regularly put together teams that contended for the worst rather than the best records in the league. At first I would get frustrated, but eventually I learned that keeping up with my teams wasn't the most important thing in life. I even got a sort of pleasure out of pulling for such lousy teams at some point because it proved I wasn't a front runner.

I could pick another team to root for, and I did kind of do that when Arizona went to the World Series a couple of years ago, but picking another team because mine isn't doing so well feels disloyal and cheap.

I have learned throughout this time that, while the teams I like can go through short stretches where they win games, they will inevitably fall apart in spectacular fashion well before the playoffs. This means that I am never too tied to the TV during the baseball or football postseason.

Now I am getting guardedly optimistic about the Tigers after they annihilated the Twins this weekend. Maybe this means I can become a sports fan once again, or it could mean that I will have my heart ripped out one more time. At least I'm not a Royals fan.