Baseball Psychosis

The Desperate Schizophrenia of the Dedicated Baseball Fan

After a particularly dramatic game of baseball I sometimes find myself going onto the internet the next morning and stalking the comment board on our local paper’s web-site. I scroll through the words and icons and share in the emotions and feelings of my fellow fans. I find this incredibly time wasting exercise entertaining due to the level of high drama that is spewed in all directions. If the game was a win then there is somewhere around seventy five comments. If the game was a loss then there is more like one hundred and twenty five, and with the win the comments are a welcome to a new age of joy and enlightenment, while every loss brings proclamations of the death of all hope and the gray dawn apocalypse. There is no in between.
After a win many of the commentators pick up the struggling batter that has been cold for the last few games and has had a hit this time around. They raise him to the heavens as the wounded but redeemed son of the creator. A hero has stepped up, fulfilling the secret hope that every fan has been hiding deep down inside themselves but was too ashamed to show. Even the pitcher who is being paid a disgusting amount of money while playing like garbage for the better part of five years is hoisted up, a new dawn upon us as he finally turns it around and reaches his potential.
Things are back on the good foot, the team has found their rhythm, the recession has ended. Cynical fans that have bad mouthed the team for weeks confess that they were wrong, that they allowed themselves to get caught up in the negative band wagon and had allowed their fear to overtake the purity of their own hearts. The guilt is overshadowed by the incredible relief that comes with a win and all is forgiven.

Now a loss.....man, a loss. Many of the comments on the morning after a loss are unreadable, censored by an intern of some kind that works for the paper. This poor bastard desperately tries to keep up and block the comments due to words like douche gaskets, cocksuckers, and worthless shit bags. There is a sense of betrayal so thick that it can be hard to fathom. The fans lash out with a venom that is usually saved for people like Pol Pot and Bin Ladin and they do it with a freedom that only a computer and an alias can allow. Yesterday's hero is today’s black hatted villain. The same team that played big league baseball in the last win can no longer hit, can no longer catch, can’t pitch, and there is no hope on the horizon.

Many of the comments after a loss begin to call for heads. The manager must be fired.  The general manager must go. The players must be sent down to the minor leagues. The trainers must be cut loose, the teenager that wears the fuzzy animal costume of the team’s mascot must be strangled to death, live on the mound. Even the fans themselves must go: how dare they pay exorbitant amounts of money for tickets, only to stuff themselves with sausages and cotton candy and not care. They don’t care enough. They’re the worst fans in the world, and with the these comments comes a stifling  layer of self loathing, because only a day ago this poster was one of those fans.

The self loathing is even more evident on local sports radio. Many a summer afternoon, driving back from God knows where after doing God knows what, I find myself tuning into AM radio and fascinating myself with the call in’s from fans after a loss.  They are exclusively men, and the tones of their voices shrink and break as they try to express their utter dissatisfaction and hurt. Some are angry, the sound of their saliva sputtering and slapping through the speakers of my car. This team was their girlfriend, their lover, and after sharing their hopes and dreams with this woman she has gone off and given her body and soul over to their most hated enemy. It can be disturbing to witness.                    

It is most difficult for the fans of an average team. An average baseball team goes up and down, constantly bouncing above and below .500. The wins and losses turn the fan numb because there is no consistency. It is easier for the fan of struggling team (see the Twins) or a triumphant team (see the Dodgers, unfortunately). You can deal with the wins and the losses as the fan of one of these teams because it is consistent, you know your team is bad or you know it’s good. An average team pains you because they lose a few and you figure their lousy but then they turn around and win 14 to 3 and you think they have turned it around, they give you hope.
But of course, things switch back, and the same problems that plagued the team in earlier games (lousy pitching, the inability to hit, bad defence) come back and raise their ugly head. There are teams that must win and end up at the top of their division and there are teams that must fail and end up the very bottom, but then there are all the teams that must win, win, lose, win, win lose, lose, lose, lose, win, win, lose, lose, and so forth and end up forgotten in the never ending season of major league baseball. It is enough to drive you mad.
Some do go mad. They watch and listen to the games in a numb stupor, never allowing themselves to become too happy, and never falling too low either. They love their team, they wear the hat and the jersey and the jacket, but they bad mouth that team at every turn, like a child that refuses to hope because the mere act of hoping can turn the world against them. Please keep mind that I am referring to baseball fans. Different sports call for different reactions and the unique marathon style of the baseball season forces a baseball fan into this numb world weary reaction. Football fans react differently. That’s why the most reported cases of domestic violence are reported on Super Bowl Sunday.

05-24-12