Why Lakers, Why?!

I've been attempting to come to grips with the colossal failure of my beloved Los Angeles Lakers last night, and more specifically why I care like I do when they lose, and why the hell I bother to follow sports to begin with. I came up with this, which was written in a message to someone who was pondering related issues:

Following sports is great because it's roller coaster ride on invisible tracks. You watch a movie, and you more or less know what's going to happen and that the good guys are going to win. In sports all that stuff is off. Even if you believe that the refs are betting on games, you don't know which side they've bet on beforehand. It's such a great ride when you've got your Rain Man-style statistics at the ready, you read every column and scouting report, and your team wins. You feel like you had some cosmic part in willing your team to victory, especially since you wore your lucky Magic Johnson '87 MVP t-shirt.

On the other hand, I'm simply pissed the Lakers "wet the bed" after having a 24 point lead. The fan, especially when watching the game on TV and not at the arena, has exactly zero percent input on the outcome of the game. The fan thinks, "I would've known to at least foul Ray Allen, or punch him in the kidney or something." When they lose it really makes me think, couldn't I have been learning origami, or trying to end world hunger instead of screaming at a television?

It's very anti-Zen following a team, all highs and lows, no creamy middle. Those stakes only get raised as the playoffs stretch onward towards infinity. At the beginning of the season, with Kobe demanding a trade to Chicago (so he could lose to the Celtics more often, no doubt) I thought there was no way we were going to be in the Finals, but here we are (and by "we" I mean a team that I don't play on) and now I'm mad we're losing!

Even though a team has never come back from a deficit of this margin in the Finals, I still have a sliver of a glimpse of hope. That doesn't really make any sense to me, but I guess in the end that's why I love sports. Nobody knows for sure that the good guys will win.