The Agony of Defeat
NFL Playoffs. The joy, the excitement, and the anticipation. As a Packer fan, I’ll admit that I’ve been spoiled essentially my entire life with playoff appearances, MVPs, and Hall of Fame Quaterbacks. I’ve even seen the Packers win the Super Bowl. Twice. However, Sunday afternoon, I witnessed a tough and agonizing collapse out in Seattle. It hurt. It hurt a lot. But one day after, I’m not too disappointed. Now, Wisconsin sports have seen their fair share of tough defeats. From Wisconsin’s three losses in the Rose Bowl, plus some last second defeats to Ohio State and Michigan State, it’s been a rough stretch. Don’t even mention last year’s Final Four. The Brewers were one game away from heading to the World Series in 2011. The Packers even gave up a 4th and 26 to the Eagles years ago in the postseason. Oh, and remember the Fail Mary? Yeah, it’s been rough.
Despite all of this despair and frustration, I realize this is why I love sports. If you won a championship every year, what fun would it be? That’s what makes sports great. The pain and suffering of tough defeats, losing seasons, and embarrassing losses make a championship run that much more spectacular. In sports, there are upsets, there are surprises, and there are comebacks. Nothing is a guarantee. If it was, the Yankees would win the World Series every year, right? I offer condolences to fellow B4B’ers Rex, who has endured a few tough losses to his Broncos over the past few years. I won’t forget about Adam, who watched his Royals make a magical postseason run, only to fall one game short from a World Series Championship. It’s tough. These kind of setbacks make victory taste so, so much sweeter. The thrill of a comeback, or a title for the underdogs is often something that might as well be in the fiction section at the library. Yet they’re real. They happen. Time after time, sports are able to defy all odds and blow away our expectations with excitement like no other.
This is especially true in baseball. When the game is never essentially over. A team doesn’t race against the clock. The only clock is themselves. They control the comeback. Sure, if you’re down by five runs with the bases empty and two outs in the bottom of the ninth, a comeback isn’t the easiest thing to do. But it’s possible. There’s something about staying through a ballgame in its entirety. Your head getting a little sore, because you’ve been wearing your rally cap for the past few innings, and despite all odds stacked against you. Your team always has a chance to make a comeback.
The same can be said with Biking for Baseball’s 2015 ride. If the ride is to go exactly as thought, where would the fun be in that? Our new shirts resemble this exact thought.
Hit a setback. Take a stepback. Make a comeback. What more needs to be said? I mean come on, I want to be blown away by magnificent views I could never imagine. I want to be challenged by rough winds. I want to get lost, and have to ask a stranger for directions. I want to be sore. I want to miss home. I want this trip to be difficult. If it was easy, anyone would do it right? I’ll be thrown curveballs. I’ll be thrown curve balls as vicious as Kerhaw’s. And I bat from the left side of the plate. Didn’t Matt Adams hit a home run off of Clayton Kershaw this postseason? Although a task may seem impossible, it can happen. There are undoubtedly people out there who question my ability to make this trip happen. To those people, I say thank you. You fuel my fire, and motivate me more than ever to come through for these kids. Success in the face of difficulty is the best kind of success there is. Sure this trip will be challenging, and I’m bound to make mistakes. I’ll feel the agony of a screw up, the frustration of a flat tire, and the exhaustion of long miles. When all is done, these difficulties will only make the successes taste that much sweeter.