On Immeasurable Disappointment

Life is full of disappointments. Santa doesn’t exist, I’ll probably never get to walk on the moon, and no matter how many times I declare for the NBA draft, nobody wants a 5’10 guard who can’t shoot or jump and throws out his back doing the laundry. These are the disappointing truths that, as an adult, I’ve come to terms with… mostly. There is, however, one realm where hope springs eternal, where there is always a brighter tomorrow, where every single year I build myself up only to be dashed against the rocks of disappointment once again: baseball season.

This year, the Los Angeles Dodgers were good…super good…historically good. Over the course of the nearly 6-month-long regular season, they won 111 games, more than any National League team since the 1906 Cubs. That was before the invention of the blender, the pop-up toaster, or the candy apple! And yet, even with all of that prolonged excellence, it only took 4 days for all of that historic greatness to disappear as the Dodger’s season ended at the hands of the upstart Padres.

I’m used to this category of disappointment. As I detailed in my revelry of the 2020 Dodgers. Every single baseball season of my 31-year life, except one, has ended in disappointment. And yet, this one felt different, worse somehow. The thing about getting older is that time dulls many things. Experience sands off the rough edges of life. Things that would enrage you or excite you as a teenager seem to elicit varying degrees of “meh.” When it comes to sports, however, the fire still burns.

I come into every baseball season with the glass not half full, not half empty, but entirely full of $17 beer, fresh, foamy, and frosty cold from the stadium. So, when things go so well, so UNBELIEVABLY well, for six straight months…well, I certainly set myself up for this one.

When the season came to a screeching halt, my disappointment was truly immeasurable. I exploded a single expletive and then… just kind of walked in circles. I couldn’t fathom how disappointed I was, it just felt like a bottomless pit that stared back at me, giggling at my folly, chuckling at my foolish optimism.

That’s the special thing about sports, though…they don’t really matter. Yeah, the highs are deliciously high and the lows are crushingly low but it’s all so fleeting and meaningless in the grand scheme of things. It’s just a chance to flex your emotional muscles, to feel unbridled joy at a large man hitting a small ball a jaw-dropping distance, or to feel immense sadness when that same ball misses an imaginary box by mere inches and tragedy befalls your favorite group of millionaires.

But, the next day, your life is the same. Your coffee tastes the same, your apartment looks the same, and your job sucks the same. The extreme highs and lows you felt the night before seem kind of silly…and yet, when spring rolls around I’ll be ready to feel it all over again.