Four games; a disappointing year; Psycho-analysis of an amateur sports fan.

The last four games I have watched of my Team's have been continued disappointment. Is it my timing or just a coincidence? Of course when you are follower of teams like those I do, disappointment becomes an acceptable part of life.

Game 1: India Vs Australia 5th ODI, 2009.
Australia set 351 as target and India were bundled out for 347 in the last over. Yet another grand display by the greatest cricketer of our times; Tendulkar scored 175. He was out before he could bring the team to the shore. Is Tendulkar on the wrong team or is he just not great enough to complete the huge task on his shoulders. If you look at the number of times he brought the team close enough to victory, the number of times he fell short is far greater than the times he was successful. The fact that the remaining 10 members in his 20 year career are duds is another part of Indian Cricket fan's pathetic life. Should selectors be blamed for this debacle. There were times when money was blamed. With 90% of world cricket's money in BCCI pockets, lack of money and talent cannot be the cause. What else? I know, I should stop watching cricket.

Game 2: WVU(Rank 25) vs Cincinnati(Rank 5) 11/13/2009.
This game has huge implications for WVU mountaineers if they want to stay alive in the hunt to lead Big East. The 'eers have proved time and again that when it comes to the games that matter, they come close enough but can never finish them off. Like the game against Pittsburgh in 2007 that had National Championship implications : they lost. It was also 100 anniversary of the Backyard Brawl. They could never take revenge the following year either. Similarly in 2008 they lost to USF. This year it is Cincinnati. The fact that an important play, during the game against Cinci this year, was turned over by poor officiating did not help the matters. The term 'Indisputable video evidence' is not clear to the officials on the field. The officials ruled that the play was a turnover at the WVU inches to touchdown line; the score was then 7-7. The video replay made the score to 7-14 against WVU awarding a touchdown to Cincinnati. The Mountaineers never recovered. They lost focus in the third quarter and let the Cincinnati win. WVU seems to have problems getting into a offensive rhythm in the second half especially in the third quarter. They often go scoreless in that quarter while conceding touchdowns to the opposite team. The offensive coordinator better take a took at his sorry state of play calling.

Game: Lakers(7-1) vs Nuggets(7-2) 11/13/2009.
The defending champions were coming off of a 6 game winning streak. This they have achieved without the services of their star future hall of fame Pau Gasol who is sidelined with an injury. Also Nuggets star player Carmelo Anthony had a poor offensive history against Lakers. With the addition of Artest it appeared that they could clearly shut him down this time too and the winning momentum was with the Lakers. Atleast that is the theory. As it says, that is theory and things don't happen the way they are supposed to. Kobe was completely shutdown in the second quarter. Carmelo had a great game offensively and none of the Lakers contributed much offensively. Defensively the performance was lacklustre at best. The result was a 105-79 drubbing of the Lakers by the Nuggets. This was a biggest margin of loss for Lakers in some time.

Phillies Vs. Yankees - MLB World Series Championship 6th game.

The Phillies lost 7-3. It was a drubbing by a single Japanese player named Hideki Matsui. After 3 games I had thought, the Phillies were going for a Repeat. That euphoria was short when I started watching baseball(Shh... I dont like baseball much). Phillies lost the series without much of a fight.

The first two games were at least entertaining. It gave hope while they lasted. But there are problems with hope. It causes long lasting heartbreak. While a drubbing is easily forgotten, atleast in the pre-season. While a drubbing; like the one India received against Sri Lanka during the 1996 World Cup; the one that WVU got against Pittsburgh in 2007; the one the Lakers received against Pistons in the championship series 5th game of 2004; can never be forgotten.

I guess I had more than my allowed dose of disappointments for this year. May be I should quit watching games for this year and plead with my Disappointment Doctor to stop that medication on me.

But I think the problem lies here. Unlike die hard fans, I am a regular guy who likes sports. The trouble with sports fans like me is the same as that of amateur investors. Amateur investors continually lose money on their trades. This is how they typically invest. They watch the news and other investing media of their choice regularly. They are not the leaders in picking stocks nor are they good at predicting trends. They watch a trend on the sidelines, they want to test the waters but are afraid of losing their money. So they wait and wait and wait, and finally they put some money on the observed trend. But they are too late now. The party is over and they are there to clean up the mess. The trend retraces and they lose money. This can go for longs and shorts as well.

Similar is the fate of sports fans like me. They have a set of teams they like. We don't have to debate why they like those teams. They are not even ardent die hard fans though they are decent enough to pass off as knowledgeable. So they follow their teams like WVU mountaineers for example. They see that the Mountaineers have won their first 4 games of the season. They get excited, they go to ESPN and check the team schedule and find that they are playing USF next Saturday. They forget or are not aware that, the first half of the season is loaded with really small teams and their team kicks ass against them. So come Saturday they are hugely disappointed when the watch their beloved Mountaineers team struggle against the USF. The Mountaineers lose the game and the miserable fan swears that he will not watch them for some time. His focus shifts to NBA like say Lakers. The Lakers have a huge streak of 6 games. But the law of averages dictates that even the Best team loses to a Bad team. So the Lakers lose. In the mean time, the Mountaineers have 2 back to back wins. The fan who was disappointed watching the game against USF is rejuvenated and gets ready for the game against Cinci. By this time, the Mountaineers are well into the second half of the season where they play really tough teams and every game has important implications. The chances that they will lose a game are close to 50%. The fact that the Mountaineers have won 2 back to back, brings the odds of WVU losing to a better ranked Cinci to more than 80%. But again our sports fan is an average next door guy. He just wants to be on the winning side just like our amateur investor and ends up being late to the party perennially. All he wants is bragging rights at work when his team wins; but bragging rights is a very limited commodity. The saga of the sports fan disappointment continues.