Passing Judgment – Not a Fun Week in Sports

Besides having some personal medical issues this week (no worries – everything is fine now), it was not a good 7 days to be a fan of the sports teams that I root for.  I have become immune and accustomed to disappointment when it comes to my sports allegiances (outside of a couple Giants’ Super Bowl victories over the last couple decades).  But generally speaking, I normally don’t have much to root for in terms of my teams’ successes.

Starting last Monday, the news broke that Cliff Lee signed with his “mystery team”, the Philadelphia Phillies.  Of course, this was bittersweet since at first I was elated when I heard the Yankees were out of the running for him.  Like many others, I assumed this meant that Lee decided to re-sign with the Texas Rangers.  But not only did he turn down the two known offers that were made, he actually approached the Phillies and ended up signing with them giving Philadelphia arguably the deepest and most talented starting rotation in baseball.  All this means is that any chance the Mets had of winning 5 games against the Phillies in 2011 pretty much went out the window.  The Mets were not going to compete for anything this season anyway, especially when the biggest news they have made is signing Ronny Paulino and D.J. Carrasco.  But knowing that the already dominant Phillies just added another Cy Young Award winner to their staff for the next 5 years is pretty demoralizing.  Every other team in the NL East has made moves and gotten better.  The Mets have stood still with their hands in their empty pockets and now may be looking up at the Nationals from the cellar of the division.

So also last Monday, the Giants did win a Monday Night game against the Vikings in Detroit.  That was very positive as it put them into a 1st place tie with the Eagles setting up the showdown this past weekend.  I think we all know where this is going as the Giants pulled off a monumental, epic, titanic and catastrophic collapse against the Eagles by allowing 28 points in the last 8 minutes of the game.  This is easily the worst loss in the Giants’ regular season history.  From the breakdowns on offense, defense, special teams, and coaching, it was a team effort to allow the Eagles back into the game and let alone able to win it in regulation.  Rookie punter Matt Dodge should be sent out of Dodge after the way he has performed this season and specifically at the end of this game.  How and why he kicked the ball in bounds to DeSean Jackson is beyond anyone’s comprehension.  But regardless of all that, the Giants still do control their own destiny for the playoffs as they can lock up the wild card by winning their own games.  However, how will a collapse like this effect their performance and focus for the next couple weeks?  This is where Tom Coughlin’s true grit, guts and value as a coach will shine through.  He has to focus his team on next week and forget about what happened against the Eagles.  Irrespective of whether the players can do that, the fans probably cannot do so that easily.  I was laying in a hospital bed watching that debacle and nearly suffered from cardiac arrest from it.  It was painful to watch as the Giants simply shut themselves down in all facets of the game.  The sad thing is that in the back of my cynical mind, I still had a bad feeling about the game, even at 31-10 with 8 minutes left.  I could just taste it in my mouth that something was going to go wrong, and it sure did.

Besides the Mets and Giants woes, I had to endure a mixed bag of emotions with the Knicks this past week as well.  After defeating Carmelo Anthony and the Denver Nuggets last Sunday, the Knicks had themselves an 8-game winning streak heading into the biggest home games in a decade against Boston and Miami.  The hype was all there as ESPN was prominently featuring the Knicks all week during their renaissance.  So last Wednesday night, the Knicks were in control of the Celtics the entire game until the very last few seconds when Paul Pierce pierced the hearts of Knicks’ fans with his beautiful jump shot with .4 seconds left on the clock.  As if that wasn’t enough, Amar’e Stoudamire then hit a 3-pointer just after the buzzer went off teasing us all.  No matter what the result was, the overall consensus was that the Knicks had arrived and could hang with any team.  They played their hearts out and provided one of the best NBA games in recent history.  This all led towards the further hype of the game against Miami where LeBron James would make his MSG debut as a member of the Heat.  After a wild and passionate first half, the Knicks found themselves tied with Miami at 57-57 and looking like they were going to be competitive all night.  Then the 2nd half started and the Knicks proved to be no match for the Heat.  Miami pulled away in the 3rd quarter and went on to a blowout victory.  As if that wasn’t bad enough, the next night the Knicks went to Cleveland to the play LeBron’s former team and still couldn’t beat the Cavaliers.  So after an 8-game winning streak and riding high, the Knicks now lost three in a row in heart-breaking and crushing fashion. 

Sports is all about momentum – riding the high’s and surviving the low’s.  It is the same for the players who play the games and the fans who cheer for them.  This week was definitely a severe low for me personally with my sports allegiances.  But after being used to such disappointment, this too will pass.  It was just kind of amazing that there was a perfect storm of suck-titude between the Mets, Giants and Knicks.  Oh yeah, I was also eliminated from the playoffs in both my fantasy football leagues.  When it rains, it pours.  Let’s just hope it doesn’t collapse the foam roof on top of my house.