Baseball season sadly ended for me on Wednesday night, September 28th. Sure, I know postseason games are ongoing, but my team, the Atlanta Braves, didn’t make it this year. They lost their final opportunity on Wednesday night in a heartbreaking loss to the Philadelphia Phillies by a score of 3 – 4 in 12 innings. 
The Braves led going into the 9th inning and blew it. Like a merciful doctor, the Phillies pulled the plug on the Braves and put an end to what was a tragic month of baseball.
Teams win and teams lose, but the Braves, like their American League counterpart, the Boston Red Sox, gave up significant leads as Wild Card leaders at the beginning of September, only to see them squander it and lose it all on the final game of the regular season. The Braves finished the month of September with a record of 9 wins and 18 losses, a record hardly worthy of postseason play.
My allegiance is with and will always be with the Braves, but I don’t allow it to override my objectivity and good sense. The Braves were not, and should not be, heading into the postseason unless they were firing on all cylinders – hitting, pitching, and fielding. By the end of the season, the St. Louis Cardinals were the better performing team, earning and deserving of their Wild Card win.
The Aftermath
Since Wednesday night, both Braves and Red Sox fans have been online raving about
- Who should be fired?
- Who should be traded?
- Who should be brought back?
- What needed to be served in the concessions stands and
- Who needed to be shot, then traded.
We, the fans, insist on the performance of our sports teams and expect changes if they fail to meet our expectations. Adding to the swirl were the rumors spread by the ESPN talking heads. While management may claim they were not responding to pressure from the fans, it seems we often get our way. At the time of this post, Terry Francona, the manager, or more accurately, former manager of the Red Sox, “agreed” to part ways with management. While falling short of firing the manager, the Braves did fire their hitting coach, Larry Parrish.
Conclusion
Is there something in common between the way sports fans have high expectations for their teams and the way partners carry high expectations into their blended family relationships? As fans, when things don’t go the way we expect, we get angry and want to change everything about our team – from coaches and management to players. In our relationships, when Miss Right becomes Mrs. Always Right, we become critical of everything she and her children do.
Did you know a fan can now divorce his team? In fact, there’s a website where you can get an official divorce decree from your team. You only have to look at the divorce rate for blended family marriages to learn that it’s a popular option. Despite our most earnest efforts to will our teams to win games, there’s nothing we can really do to affect the outcome.
However, it’s flawed and dangerous to carry the same mentality to our marriages. As major players in our marriages, we are fortunate to have the opportunity to make changes in ourselves that can mean the difference between the heartbreak of divorce and a lasting marriage.
