One of favorite shows on television is “The Great British Bake Off,” a cooking competition show in England, where amateur bakers square off each week to make several different baked goods. It is perhaps the friendliest competition show ever, as the bakers set up inside a tent in the rolling English countryside and encourage and help each other along, even as they encounter all sorts of challenges.
On a recent episode, one of the bakers, Marc, spoke to the judges about how reading a book on Buddhism helped him find some meaning in his life after he lost a leg in an accident. Later, as everyone else in the tent frantically tried to finish what they were doing, Marc stood quietly and exhaled a deep breath. A camera zoomed in and asked Marc what he was doing, and he said: “I take every opportunity I can just to take a mindful breath. Just kind of bring me back to the present moment. Because when you think about it, when we’re worrying, we’re worrying about things that happened in our past, or they’re worrying about the future. And ultimately, we’ve got no control over that, have we?”
Marc did qualify this by adding, “Of course, it’s easier said than done,” but still, those few sentences have stuck in my head all week. We worry about the past, we worry about the future, but why can’t we just dwell in the moment? As a lifelong fan of the Atlanta Braves, I don’t need to agonize over Jim Leyritz and Eric Gregg and Lonnie Smith and a terribly-judged infield fly rule. I don’t need to worry about ace starter Mike Soroka’s return from injury and whether or not we can re-sign Marcell Ozuna and how this Braves team will mature over the next few years. Maybe I should just sit on my couch and watch and appreciate.
My friend Rem texted me on Sunday morning to see how I was coping in advance of Game 7. We are both Atlanta natives who have moved on to live elsewhere, and we understand that no matter where we live, those teams we grew up rooting for are still in us.
“We are gonna be ok,” I answered. “I’ve been thinking about this this morning. Like, win or lose, life goes on and I tired of letting these teams break my heart.”
“Wow,” he responded. “The growth.”
“Maybe it’s acceptance?” I said. “I dunno man, I just can’t walk around broken all the time. At least the Falcons let us off the hook early this season.”
“I think it’s acceptance,” he agreed.
On Saturday night, as I sat on the couch and let Nick Saban rip out my UGA fan’s heart, something that seems to happen pretty regularly, my son took a seat at the nearby dinner table and grabbed some paper and art supplies. At halftime I walked over and checked on him, and found him nearly finished with drawing and building his own board game, which he named “Roar or Fall.” I pulled up a chair and helped color, realizing that as much as I wanted UGA to beat Alabama, this was life I was missing out on. As Alabama pulled away, I busied myself coloring in “The Outlands,” where contestants would have to move their totem and wait when they missed a turn.
Whatever it is, I realized, I had finally reached the point in my life where I could be OK with whatever happens to my sports teams. Win or lose, it’s not even how they play the game. It’s that they even play the games.
And then Game 7 of the NLCS started between the Braves and Dodgers, and all that stuff was out the window. Zen? Nah. I was pacing, sitting, standing, complaining, clapping. At one point I seriously considered putting my phone on silent and going out for a run. I probably sent and received more text messages last night than I had all month combined. When the Braves had a baserunning blunder and ran themselves into a double play, my friend Dave texted our group chats and said “Feels like a historic messup, the kind (our friend) Todd will trot out 20 years from now.”
Todd responded: “You better believe it. I store that stuff away and fester on it.”
Welcome to what life is like as a sports fan. We can’t turn it on or off. Reason and logic and all that stuff does not apply. In the bottom of the fourth inning, when the Dodgers got two on with one out, I found myself sweating. I wasn’t actually doing anything physical—I was literally sitting on the couch drinking iced tea—but I was stressed the heck out.
It’s not like any of this was really that much of a surprise. As Atlanta Braves fans, we are used to getting close to that ultimate prize but not winning it. We’ve been Icarus-ing through the National League since 1991, soaring toward the sun only to have our wings melted and remelted before we can experience the final glory. The frequency doesn’t diminish the feels. What I’ve had to learn is how to deal with all that frustration and nervousness. And disappointment.
It’s not pain that we experience so much as it’s just disappointment. And anger, at the disappointment. Because it’s happened over and over. Last year we lost the deciding game against the Cardinals when they put up 10 runs in the first inning. The Braves blew a 2-0 lead in the 1996 World Series. In ’97, the Braves lost a deciding game in the NLCS in the worst umpired game I’ve ever seen.
This year we got to Game 7 against the Dodgers and got the lead! And then we made 18 consecutive outs. It was a close game for most of the night, until the Dodgers went ahead late, and the moment the Dodgers took the lead, it just felt like it was over.
It was a fun season for the Braves, and I tried to remind myself that this team is way ahead of schedule. The Braves have an impossibly young team, led by guys like Ronald Acuna and Ozzie Albies and Max Fried and Ian Anderson. Add in vets like Freddie Freeman and Marcell Ozuna, who became the sort of the spiritual leader, along with a deep bullpen, and despite most of their starting pitchers getting injured along the way, the Braves became a lot of fun to watch every night.
The Braves won a lot more than they lost, and rolled into the postseason. They jumped out to a 3-1 lead in the NLCS, and then… well, you know.
I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t know how to fix it. I just know that I can’t turn it off.
I’ll see ya next season. Until then, I guess I’ll play some “Roar or Fall.”