Wait, Some of You Really Do Enjoy Losing?
Maybe my outlook is biased (or buyest, for you eggs out there) by the good feels and the fact that a majority of my communication with fellow fans is devoid of the self-righteous fist-shaking you find in people who write letters to the editor. Still, I think I’ve got a pretty good feel for what my fellow fans want, and it’s damn sure not another loss.
However, a recent poll conducted by Yahoo sports and YouGov found that some Cubs fans are okay with losing. Not just that, a few of them actually like it. I think it’s important to note that there are some semantic and linguistic gymnastic involved here, like with the stuff about having an identity and finding camaraderie in losing. I can see how you’d agree that that’s the case but still be happy to ditch the drought.
That makes sense, I can’t argue with those ideas, but it’s still weird to read that three percent of those who identified as “diehard Cubs fans” do not want the team to win. I mean, it’s totally contradictory to identify as a fan of a team and actually want them to lose. Right?
You may be wondering why I’m even bothering with such nonsense as we near the first World Series game at Wrigley Field since Alaska and Hawaii were states. To be honest with you, I found it kind of interesting. And I’m a sucker for infographics. And while I do think it’s incredibly warped and backwards to want your team to lose — unless they’re already really bad and you’re talking about better draft picks — I know those folks do exist.
Actually, let me dial that back a little bit. Even when the Cubs were brutally bad and most of us understood the methods to the madness, I don’t think we wanted them to lose. It was more about having an increased tolerance for the inevitable. Thus, we now we have the methods of the Maddon-ness.
Now to see about making these poll results irrelevant.
