Turnaround Starts Now

by Deluded Dodger Fan

I really wish I could give up. That would make the direction this season has taken so much easier. Instead every loss hurts because I honestly go into each game thinking that the Dodgers will win. When someone comes up with runners on scoring position I think the hit will come. Oh, I do also dread the inevitable fly out or double play, but deep down, I'm always surprised when it comes. Always.

It's this foolish and crippling optimism that causes me to say the turnaround starts now, after the Dodgers put up their first victory in a week. Deep down I really think it is the start of a turnaround. I really think they'll sweep the Cardinals. You know, the team that swept the Dodgers in St. Louis last year. If only I deep down expected the Dodgers to lose, then if they won it would be such a joyous boon. A Dodger win would be like a Mark Hendrickson hit. There, at least, I am not deluded. I've never deep down thought that Hendrickson would get a hit.

The Cardinals! I've often wondered what it was like to be a fan of theirs last year. That stretch at the end of the regular season when they lost nearly every game they played and almost coughed up their playoff spot to the Astros must have really been awful for Cardinal fans. Now one can say that winning the World Series makes up for it. I'm sure Cardinal fans would say that. But I don't know. They still had to go through that near-collapse. The World Series title didn't make that not be. Was it really worth it to hit such lows? But maybe most Cardinal fans didn't go through such a low. They took it in stride, and so there is no blemish on 2006 for them. That's how I want to be. Well-adjusted. But it's not happening, not yet. If I was like that I wouldn't be writing this blog.

It's amazing I haven't written an entry full of curse words and bile yet. I've wanted to after every shut out loss. But I'm not here to spread misery. I'm here to spread delusion. The delusion isn't that the Dodgers are good, or that they might start winning: the delusion is that any of this matters, that a Dodger win is worth being happy over. So, to anyone who is joining me in this madness, take cheer, for the turnaround starts now. And if it doesn't, then wait until next week, or the week after ... I'll still be here, peddling delusion. At least until the Ides of September.