January 2004
Sports and suffering: A theology of sports and the meaning of life
I know it’s old news, but I needed time to talk about it. After yet another year of excruciating losses by the Boston Red Sox and the Minnesota Vikings, I now feel the need to vent. I grew up in Brooklyn, NY, but I am a Red Sox fan and a Vikings fan. By some cruel twist of fate, I became a Vikings fan after their loss to the Miami Dolphins in the 1974 Superbowl and a Red Sox fan after their loss to the Cincinnati Reds in the 1975 World Series. Since that time, I have been rooting passionately for both teams to win a championship. Not simply “rooting for the underdog” (the way someone outside of Chicago might root for the Cubs) but passionate, intense, uncontrollable rooting. Why do I root for these teams? Why do I care so much? I tell myself there are so many more important things in life. Why do I suffer the loss of a championship as if it were some real-life tragedy? I have never even lived in Boston or Minnesota! Why am I so desperate to see these teams win? Is it some deep psychological problem that was never resolved in my childhood? Too many drugs as a teenager?
I have no idea. But when someone on the HBO special “The Curse of the Bambino” was quoted as saying that Buckner’s error in 1986 was “the darkest day in Boston since the assassination of President Kennedy,” I could relate. Don’t get me wrong: logically, I see the absurdity of the statement, but passionately, I know exactly what he means. This is the paradox. I am both repelled and drawn to the concept of real suffering over something so seemingly meaningless. The more these teams lose, the deeper the scar grows. The most recent disasters for both teams in the same year hold especially deep wounds.
After the Red Sox blew it again last October, I could not watch the World Series. It’s like watching the woman you love in another man’s arms. It just hurts too much. But like so many others, I break down. I suffer such emotional agony in October, but there I am again at her door in April. This is one of the true signs of a real Red Sox fan: endless hope in the face of impending disaster. You think, “How are they gonna blow it this time?” Yet you keep watching, hoping you are wrong. Last year’s Game 7 loss to the Yankees is a classic example. With the pain of 1946, 1948, 1967, 1975, 1978, 1986, and other brutal losses under their belts, true Red Sox fans watched the series with dread and hope at the same time. Here is my personal nightmare of that game: Well, here we are…game 7, the bottom of the 8th, up 5-2. We have 2 pitchers in the bullpen who have pitched very well against the Yankees throughout the series, so I’m feeling pretty good about their chances. Wait… why is Little still letting Martinez pitch? He’s one of the best pitchers in baseball, so maybe let him go until he gets into trouble. One out, fine, next batter …a double…ok, time to take Martinez out…no??? What is he doing…You have 2 pitchers in the bullpen who have pitched very well against the Yankees all series… next batter… base hit, 5-3… ok, that’s enough…YOU HAVE TWO PITCHERS IN THE BULLPEN THAT HAVE PITCHED VERY WELL AGAINST THE YANKEES !! Next batter, double… 5- 4. Please God, it’s happening again… Somebody stop the madness… Maybe it can’t be stopped… Wait…he is not really going to pitch to another batter, is? But… YOU HAVE TWO PITCHERS IN THE BULLPEN THAT HAVE PITCHED VERY WELL AGAINST THE YANKEES!!! AARRGGHH!!! Base hit, 5-5 …now he takes him out!!! ?? Oh, come on… why not just leave him in and lose right away? Why prolong the agony? Why…?
I find this anticipation of impending doom to be true for Minnesota Vikings fans, too. Red Sox fans may disagree, but with 4 Superbowl defeats and some excruciating playoff losses in the past, the Vikings fan is no slouch at suffering. Ask any fan who watched the 1998 NFC Championship against Atlanta, where the Vikings were minutes away from a Super Bowl berth. Field goal kicker Gary Anderson (who was literally perfect for the season) missed a chip-shot 38-yarder to ice the game, and the Vikings began another last-minute collapse.
This past December, the Vikings played the Cardinals in the season finale. The Vikings are playing a 3-12 team. They are winning 17-6 with less than 5 minutes to go. The next five minutes leave room for belief in the unbelievable. After a Cardinal touchdown, a successful onside kick, and a 30-yard interference call, they drive close to the goal line, but two back-to-back sacks by the Vikings give you false hope. Fourth and 24 with four seconds left in the game… that’s right, FOUR SECONDS! The quarterback scrambles out of the pocket; time runs out; he throws into the end zone between two defenders and makes the catch, but he is out of bounds. No problem, the referee will call a force-out and end the game with an 18-17 Cardinal win. Did that sequence of events just happen?
Why is it always something with certain teams? If it’s not an error or fumble, it’s the ref’s call; if not, it’s an unbelievable decision by the manager or coach. It’s always something! Why do these teams always lose? I have no answer. Sometimes teams break their curse: the Dodgers could never beat the Yankees, then finally did in 1955; Dallas endured a row of heartbreaking championship losses but won it all in 71; Denver lost four Super Bowls in the 70s and 80s but finally won 2 in the 9 s. But some teams….” Ohh that this too, too solid flesh would melt” before I suffer another year in sports like 20 3. It’s just not fair.
To reconcile my passion for sports with real-life tragedy, I have concluded that this is at least one area where life and sports are truly consistent. Life is also incredibly unfair. People steal millions of dollars and get away with it, innocent people go to jail, innocent children are raped and murdered, and on and on. Yastrzemski pops up to Nettles to end the game…the ball goes through Buckner’s legs…of all the field goals Anderson has to miss, it has to be that one?
I work with a humanitarian aid organization that delivers basic needs to orphan children in foreign countries, so I often see life’s unfairness firsthand. One summer evening, I was at the local train station in Odesa, Ukraine. A little girl called out, “Vini,” with a heavy Russian accent. It was Diana, a runaway who knew me from when she lived in one of the orphanages I worked with. My friend and I spent the next 2 hours trying to convince her to come back to the orphanage. No, she would rather live in the basement of the train station, selling her little 10-year-old body to old men for survival. What do I do? Grab her and force her to return to the orphanage? She’ll run away again the minute she gets the chance…
It’s 10:00 at night, and my car is stopped at an intersection in downtown Managua, Nicaragua. 5-year-old girl approaches my car and stretches to wash my windshield with a dirty rag for 1 Córdoba (7 cents). Her mother has sent her out to beg. What do I do? Give her money and perpetuate the problem, or don’t give her money and have her stand out there until 3 am or later until she gets something? Difficult questions I do not have answers to. Yes, life is unfair. But how do I deal with the frustration? Maybe I vent it vicariously through sports.
Some argue that sports events are to our contemporary society what popular dramatic tragedies were to ancient societies. In his analysis of tragedy, Aristotle points to its ritual function as catharsis: spectators purge their own emotions of pity and fear through vicarious participation in the drama. In contemporary sports, spectators purge their own emotions of success or fear of failure through vicarious participation in the game. Sport offers me a cathartic way to express real-life suffering and failure. My passion for the underdog releases the suffering of the poor and my failure to help them all. Because in sports, there is always hope. There is always a next year. Maybe I need that vision of hope to keep fighting real suffering. Some people are born into a wealthy home in Pennsylvania, and others are born in a wooden shack in downtown Managua, where poverty defies imagination. The Yankees have 26 championships, and the Minnesota Vikings have none. But if there’s hope for the Red Sox, there’s hope for the destitute…or so my subconscious logic goes.
I have been traveling to orphanages in Nicaragua and Ukraine since 1991, and over the years, I have developed close relationships with the children I have watched grow up. In my efforts to meet their needs, I have experienced a few successes and many overwhelming failures. One such failure often comes to mind. In March of 2000, I had just returned from a trip to Odessa. Two weeks after my return, I heard that one of the kids I knew, Alla Lisunova, had been admitted to a hospital and had died suddenly overnight. Alla was just one of many wonderful, vivacious kids I knew at the orphanage. She was happy and full of life despite her circumstances. One Monday morning, she woke up with severe pain and was sent to the hospital. On Tuesday morning, she was dead. I heard a report that she begged the nurse on duty all night long to stop the pain. Officially, she died of a viral infection brought about by inadequate heating at the orphanage. We visited her grave when I went back in the summer, and all I could think of was: “If only I had been there, I could have paid for some kind of special treatment; I could have helped her somehow”…if only…but there is no next year for Alla… she’s gone, and I live with guilt and frustration. I need a release for that kind of experience, and I find it in sports.
This catharsis, though, can vary drastically from person to person. I could never be a Dallas Cowboys fan or a Los Angeles Lakers fan because these teams are synonymous with winning dynasties. I need to be a fan of the unluckiest teams, the real losers, because that is what I experience: unbelievable suffering and insurmountable poverty. Some teams embody true tragedy. The Red Sox and Vikings give new meaning to the greatest ancient tragedies. Oedipus unwittingly murders his father and marries his mother, but there are so many “if onlys” along the path to his destruction. If only Oedipus had not met his father on the road to Thebes. If only he hadn’t asked questions; if only the old shepherd hadn’t told him the truth. Similar tragedies are played out in Fenway and the Metrodo e. If only the manager had taken Martinez out in time, or Anderson hadn’t missed that field goal… what a tragedy that such a great season is all for naught. My frustrations with the inability to help the needs of so many disenfranchised children are expressed in the passionate desire to see the unluckiest of teams win.
The Hebrew Scriptures include a book called Habakkuk. In it, the prophet Habakkuk complains to God, “Why is life so unfair?” Why do the evil flourish and the good suffer? The only answer he gets is that he must live by faith. The believer is asked to live by faith, even though it is difficult amid so much suffering in the world. The fan who lives by faith is the same, ever in the hope that next year will be the year they win it all. The just shall live by faith…the fan shall wait till next year.
Drama and sports are similar in that no one really suffers. After all the death and destruction in a tragedy, the actors get up, go home, and have a chicken sandwich. Similarly, in sports, the tragedy isn’t absolute: the players suffer loss, but go home to their million-dollar houses and come back the next day or next year to do it again.
Not so for real human tragedies.
The Viking-Atlanta NFC Championship game fell on January 17, 1999, a day when I was scheduled to be in Nicaragua for our annual Christmas gift program. When I realized there was a scheduling conflict, I was desperate. I wasn’t going to miss that game. I called a friend and begged him to find a place with a satellite dish. That Sunday afternoon, I brought 70 orphan kids to King Arthur’s Pizza in Managua to watch a football game that meant everything to me but nothing to them. As the kids sat there and ate Pizza, I watched another hope for a championship crumble away.
Sports mirror life in one very profound sense. We all struggle with insecurity and failure. We fall, but we get up and struggle n. When life hands us a tragedy, we refuse to give up hope and look to the future, just as the fans do. Like the last line of Alexandre Dumas’ novel, The Count of Monte Christo: “Has not the Count just told us that all human wisdom is summed up in two words: ‘Wait and hope.'”
If countries were sports teams, the Yankees would be America, and the Red Sox would be Nicaragua. But Nicaragua is not a sport. That day, I watched the Vikings lose in overtime, another unbelievably hard loss, and I was devastated. The kids were just glad to get away from the orphanage and eat Pizza. At the end of the game, I took the kids home to no family, terrible living conditions, lice in their hair, rats nibbling at their feet when they sleep, and no real future. Later that week, I went home to a comfortable house in America and said, “Wait till next year.” Life is tragic. The Vikings’ tragedy is something I can do nothing about except wait till next year. But the kids’…their tragedy I can and will do something about, not only next year but also every year for the rest of my li e. But please God let the Red Sox and Vikings win a championship!
Postscript
The Red Sox are probably the #1 cursed team because of the simply unbelievable ways they snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. In 1946 they lost to the Cardinals in 7 gam s. In September of 1947, the Red Sox went into Yankee Stadium needing 1 of 2 games to win the division…they lost both… In 1967, they lost the World Series in 7 games to St. Lou s. In 1972, Detroit nipped Boston on the last day of the regular season, denying the Sox an AL East title. I didn’t see those games, but I saw what happened after.
October 1975: Red Sox vs. Cincinnati. The Giants’ shutout, the Armbrister incident, the Fisk home run, and ultimately the loss- and what a loss- after an incredible Game 6 win, the Red Sox were up 3-0 in the 6th inning. The Reds got 2 in the 6th, 1 in the 7th, and 1 in the 9th to win the series. That was hard, but it was nothing compared to what was in store later. In October 1978, the Red Sox blew a 141/2-game lead (including a four-game sweep by the Yankees in September known as the “Boston Massacre”) and finished tied with the Yankees at the end of the regular season. The division title came down to a one-game playoff at Fenway Pa k. Although I was a Yankee fan, I rooted for the Red S x. When free agency first came up, Steinbrenner bought all these Oakland A’s players, and I couldn’t root for a team with players I had rooted against for so long. With the Red Sox up 3-0 in the 6th inning, Bucky Dent, the Yankee shortstop, hits a 3-run homer to tie the game. Of all people to hit a home run, the shortstop? Of course, they go on to lose by one run,5- 44. Then the nightmare in 1986.
October 25, 1986: The coup de grace of all sports disasters occurred in the bottom of the 9th inning at Shea Stadium. Buckner’s error that lost the game was just one cog in a wheel of unbelievable events the Mets had to pull off to w n. Two outs, two strikes, nobody on base, the Red Sox up 5-3 and one strike away from the win. It looks like the curse is finally over… 1 strike away… somehow, someway, the Red Sox found a way to lose the game. How many times did Red Sox pitchers have 2 strikes on batters only to give up a base hit, walk, or wild pitch? How many times did it have to be so close before losing it all? Then comes the 2003 debacle.
Black Sunday: January 17, 1999, the Vikings vs. the Falcons in the NFC Championship Game. The Vikings lose 30-27 in overtime. “The curse” reared its ugly head once again. It took a while before I could talk about it- right after it happened, I told a friend that watching football now would be like watching the woman I love in the arms of another man. It was a travesty…Atlanta vs. Denver in the Superbo l? o! It should have been the Vikings; they were 15-1 in the regular season; no team ever lost with a record like th t. The offense broke the record for points scored. They had an incredible kicker, punter, offensive line, runner, and 3 of the best receivers in football, plus a good, if not great, defense.
These teams had what it took to win, but they lost. W y? Plain and simple: “the curse.” Some don’t believe in “the curse,” but I apply nothing mystical to the term; for lack of a better word, I define “the curse” as the “inability to win.” Once you win, you beat the curse
But heartbreaking losses do hold a special place for certain teams. In my opinion, the top three cursed teams, in order, are the Boston Red Sox. The Chicago Cubs and the Minnesota Vikings. Some may argue the Cubs should be first since they have the longest dry spell without a championship (1906) compared to the Red Sox (1918), but I argue it’s not simply about losing… It’s the WAY you lose.
Consider what team brings more suffering to a fan: A perennial loser year after year with no hope of winning, or a team that gives you great hope throughout the regular season only to see that hope destroyed in the playoffs or the championship. I am from New York and a big NY Giants fan. In the 70s, when the Giants were terrible, it was disappointing but not heartbreaking because they gave you no hope. It was much worse when, in the early 80s, they started getting better, made the playoffs, then lost and crushed all the anticipation you built up during the season. But the Giants won it all in 1986 and again in 1990.
The Viking fan is left to ponder: How could the Vikings lose the 1998 NFC Championship Game to Atlanta? How could it happen? Why did Robert Smith keep going out of bounds on that last drive of regulation? How could Anderson miss such a chip-shot field goal, his first miss of the entire season, after such a great drive? How could he miss that interception right in his chest? nd how could Cunningham underthrow a wide-open Moss, letting the defender tip the ball away at the last second? How many times have I replayed it in my head?