A reader of Thomas Boswell’s most recent live chat asked whether, if the Cavaliers win the NBA title and the Cubs win the World Series, Washington would become the country’s “new designated sports cursed city,” or whether we might already deserve that title. Here’s Boswell’s response.
We’re nowhere remotely close. Everybody’s fixated on the last 25 years. You’re laughing? Stop laughing. This is reality talking to ya.
In a 30-team league, or a 32-team league (NFL), guess how often you win The Title. Hint: It’s in the neighborhood of once every 30 years or so.
The Redskins won three Super Bowls under Joe Gibbs. So, D.C. is due for another Super Bowl win in about 65 more years. The Caps have been around for 42 years — so they are a little overdue. The Wiz won it all in 1978, so that took care of them until about 2008. The new Nats have been in D.C. since ’05, so they have about 19 more years to hit the 0-for-30 mark. Those three Gibbs Super Bowl wins took care of about 100 season-years (~30 teams x 3 titles) worth of D.C. titles. Did I mention the Terps and Hoyas NCAA hoop titles?
When I was growing up and becoming a fan there were about half as many teams in every sport. (Not exactly. The NHL only had six teams then.) Yet fans then were much more patient, much less self-destructive toward their own good feelings about their teams than they are now. They tended, far more than now, to appreciate the sports themselves, the fun/drama of individual games and the players themselves for what was best or most talented in their performance. They were seen as special in their difficult fields (which they are), not as chumps who haven’t “won it all” yet. In other words, there was a general tone of respect toward the difficulty of the games and the skills of the people who were able to play them. It’s possible that jealousy about money — I pay their salaries, so win for me — is a factor.
Now, in 2016, the actual reasonable chance of a title is (roughly) half what it was back then, 50 or 60 years ago, yet the (unreasonable) demand for those titles is probably at least twice as great, if you could measure it. We’ve decided, unconsciously, to make ourselves half-as-happy about the lack of a trophy that is, at least, twice-as-difficult to obtain.
Maybe we need to change that definition of insanity. Maybe it’s not “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.” Maybe it is “rooting for something that is twice as hard as it used to be but getting twice as upset when, once again, it doesn’t happen.”
Luckily, no one person — that’s to say, you or me — has to be as stupid as people in general. There’s no law that says you have to obey the governing foolishness of the age. You don’t have to know the first names of any of the Kardashians or a single fact about any of them (and I don’t). And you don’t have to let people with a vested (radio share, click-bait, TV ratings) interest in stirring up controversy and igniting your emotions end up succeeding in telling you that YOU SHOULD’T ENJOY what you are watching or attending or telling funny stories about — if, in fact, you actually do enjoy it.
One of the few things that we are truly free to do is to follow (or not follow) sports on exactly the terms that we define. And we should make those definitions in line with our interests, our pleasures, our fun with our friends and family and fellow fans — not the interests of those who want more eyeballs or ears; or the rants of a troll on the internet who’s miserable and likes the idea of making others less happy.
A curse on curses. Especially curses that are actually bunk.
That doesn’t mean you don’t want your teams to win. Or, at some point, win it all. What it does means is: Have some context and perspective, then decide what you feel and think.
