The End of an Era (Until Next Season)

HELLO! Welcome back to the greatest sports article ever written, unless you come across something better. My name is and continues to be Matt, and today I want to talk about something that affects hundreds of thousands (or possibly just hundreds) of people across the country and the world…sports moratorium. Now I’m not even sure if I’m using that in the right context, or even know the definition, but I am going to continue anyway. In the US, there is a big 3 for sports…Football, Baseball, and Basketball. Hockey is extremely relevant and soccer is still trying to become something in the US, but there’s really only room for 3 in the big 3 for sports. That’s just math right there. So anyway, football season, which includes the NFL and NCAA, runs from around September until February, with the bulk of the games being played in September through December. During that time, we see basketball hit the hardcourt, which includes the NBA and NCAA. That runs from about late October until May. Somewhere during those shenanigans, we see baseball start, which MAINLY includes the MLB (seeing as college baseball doesn’t have a huge viewership). Now that that’s out of the way, we can get to the hard part…what happens when we run out of season?!

Now if you like one of the big 3 sports, chances are you’re at least interested in all of them. But naturally, you’re going to be the BIGGEST FAN of just ONE of them. Let’s take football for example. Let’s also pretend you’re an Atlanta Falcons fan. As a Falcons fan, you proudly watched your team make history with one of the greatest offensive seasons that the league has ever seen! They ROLLED through the playoffs before succumbing to (arguably?) the WORST loss in Super Bowl history as the Patriots roared back in the second half, from down by 25 freakin’ points, to win it in the greatest comeback of all time. WHAT A GAME! But OH NO! You’re a HUGE Falcons fan and just watched your favorite team of all time lose terribly. In the biggest game on Earth.(NOOOOOOO!!!!!!! EFFING BRADY! I HATE THE PATRIOTS AND ROGER GOODELL AND THE ENTIRE NEW ENGLAND AREA!)

So what sets in that evening for you? Hmmmm…probably some depression. Maybe some anger. Probably a good bit of gas. Either way, you’re not going to be happy or in any form of positive state. IF you fall asleep that night, the next day you will wake up with, most likely, more depression. (EFFING PATRIOTS! I don’t believe the Falcons BLEW IT SO BAD!) So sadness and anger and depression continue, until you snap yourself out of it sometime within the week (hopefully) and get back to attempting to live life. Then…Sunday rolls around again. All right! Let’s see what the Falcons will do this week! Oh wait…duh…they just lost the Super Bowl and football is over. Well that sucks…wait, there’s no football today!? IT’S SUNDAY AND THERE’S NO FOOTBALL?! WHAT AM I GOING TO DO!? ::dramatic music rolls in:: YOU HAVE ENTERED THE LAND OF THE FOOTBALL MORATORIUM!

You KNOW basketball is on, and that’s cool and all, but it’s not football. You don’t want to watch the Hawks, you want to see the Falcons. But alas…you won’t be seeing them until September (in regular season games…you know, the ones that matter). Strangely enough, I know a lot of people who actually are greatly affected by sports moratorium. I feel like they kind of just disappear for a good while. Well, I should clarify…if their team didn’t win the championship, they vanish. I kind of do the same with my Denver Broncos! Well, I didn’t this year because we just looked pretty terrible. Sometimes, and I mean sometimes, you just want a season to be OVER for your team. I wasn’t really like that with the Broncos this year because we weren’t the WORST team out there, but I knew we wouldn’t be winning the Lombardi Trophy this year for sure. So, to be honest, as much as I love my Broncos, I got over their lack of a playoff appearance relatively quickly. 

But things were MUCH different for me when it came to last year’s baseball season. When it comes to matters on the baseball diamond, I HARDCORE bleed blue for the Dodgers. Now my boys in blue haven’t won a championship since 1988 (which is at least 182 years ago),  but ever since ownership left the hands of that a-hole Frank McCourt and went over to the Guggenheim Group, things have started looking up! Suddenly, we have a huge payroll and good players and other things that make you go HOORAY OMG YES! The “problem” with that is, well, the team isn’t QUITE there yet. It’s been 5 years now since the new owners took over, and we’re still waiting to see that one cohesive team really gel and be the hot team in October. With that being said, they’ve made the playoffs several times since, and last year?! Oh last year. My Boys in Blue made the National League Championship Series, only to lose the series 4-2 to the freakin Cubs, who (possibly) deserved to win the World Series as they hadn’t won it literally in over 100 years. So as AMAZING as it was to see my team make it as far as they did, it was even HARDER to see them exit so abruptly. I found myself in Baseball Moratorium. I felt a pit in my stomach for several days or possibly weeks. Always in the back of my head I had a little bit of…I don’t know, might have been anxiety. You know when you get that little bad feeling in your head that you can’t shake? Yeah…I had that. It sucked. All I wanted was for baseball season to restart again right away so my Dodgers could redeem themselves and win the freakin’ title. But no…that’s not possible. Luckily for me, I love all the big 3 sports, so I was able to get into a football mentality within a few weeks and stop dreaming of baseball and my Dodgers winning the series in my head. Too bad the Broncos looked mostly like ass.

So, do YOU suffer from Sports Moratorium?! Are you NOT a fan of the big 3, and go into a massive depression when the one sport you love more than anything ends and your team sucked worse than the Cleveland Browns do every year? Here’s one thing I do pretty often (no, silly, don’t drink your life away): pick up a sports video game! Start a franchise season mode! Take your team to the championship and win it all virtually! What’s that? Your team is so bad, you can’t even win a game in NOT-REAL-LIFE?! Well that’s an easy fix! LOWER THE DIFFICULTY! Heck, put the game on rookie mode and win a Super Bowl with Tim Tebow if you want! RAD! That’s just one way I cope…how about you?! Let me know on Twitter by hitting up my…twitter.

Until next time everyone, I love you and try to avoid Sports Moratorium! BE SAFE OUT THERE!