Comments on: 14 Years Ago Today, My Heart Was Ripped Out…

By: djbelc01

djbelc01 — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 11:57:27 +0000

Angèle, it sounds like you’ve figured it out that truly “‘Tis better to have loved and lost…” It’s so very true for the sports world just as much as the real world. After all, Howard Cosell did once say “sports is human life in microcosm.”

By: Angèle

Angèle — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 06:21:47 +0000

I had no interest in sports before Jonah became my amazing boyfriend (in fact, I actively disliked sports and the jerks who played and watched them — surprise! you’ve fallen in love with the biggest sports fan ever!). Since then, I’ve developed mild interests in a few (it would be quite miserable to be married to a sportswriter if I couldn’t put up attending a game here and there), but I have stayed away from allegiances for the most part. Seeing what Jonah went through with his Expos, in 1994 with the strike and then soonafter for the next almost-decade until they were finally gone, it just didn’t seem worth it. ‘Tis better to have loved and lost? Not as an observer watching the world’s biggest Expos fan get his heart ripped out, over and over and over. Year after year, we attended what we thought was the last Expos game that Jonah would ever attend, and he said a solemn goodbye, and then they hung around for “one more season.” Over and over and over.

I didn’t develop any sports allegiances until I went to grad school and a mediocre team became two-time national champions with three Heismans during the time it took me to get my PhD. And then when I was almost done with my PhD, they lost the third national championship to Texas, and it was almost as awful as Ashlee Simpson’s halftime show.

Since the ’spos never made it all the way, I have never seen Jonah as thrilled (screaming his head off, face about to burst, sympathetic nervous system off the charts, leaping up and down) as the moment when we were at the Rose Bowl and we saw Mike Williams pass to Matt Leinart for a touchdown. Maybe it is worth it to love a team after all.

By: Jonah

Jonah — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 21:35:40 +0000

Thanks for that, Dan. I’m not much of an auto racing guy, but I agree, the sense of loss can be a powerful one, even in sports.

By: djbelc01

djbelc01 — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 20:52:15 +0000

It’s heartbreaking to lose your team, almost like losing a family member or close friend. I’ve never lost “my team” (I didn’t seriously get into hockey until our Louisville Riverfrogs/Louisville Panthers left town, so I didn’t feel much emotional attachment to them). I have, however, lost my favorite auto racing series.

I started to get into auto racing when I was 11 or 12 years old, right after the IndyCar World Series was split into the rival CART World Series and Indy Racing League. I was not aware of the split at the time, but had started following CART and really got into it after catching it on TV a few times. I researched the history and the split and decided that Tony George, the head of the IRL, was the devil and should not have split off. I followed CART and despised the IRL — I spent years of my life supporting CART and its great racing, interesting personalities, and beautiful, lightning quick cars racing on mostly road courses with a few ovals spread throughout. The IRL by contract had slow, ungainly cars racing on mostly ovals with drivers who couldn’t get a good ride in any other major series.

Despite a superior product in many ways, CART was very poorly managed and had trouble competing for sponsor and manufacturer support with the IRL since the IRL had the crown jewel Indianapolis 500 event. After teams and engine makers left CART to go run in the IRL to be at the Indy 500, CART went bankrupt, was bought out by former team owners and renamed Champ Car World Series. Just a couple years thereafter it was “merged” into the evil Indy Racing League, placing the evil Tony George in complete control and resorting to using the terrible IRL rules package and terrible IRL cars on a weak schedule of tracks.

Today’s IndyCar is a sad, sad shell of its former glory, and it infuriates me at one moment, but leaves me with a “Oh well, I just don’t give a damn anymore” attitude the next. It’s the closest I’ve come to losing “my team,” and I hope I never experience anything like this again. At least I still have old races I can watch, and a top-quality mod for the racing game rFactor came out this week simulating the 1995 IndyCar season so I can relive it virtually.