Column: Real Hope

Brief explanation: Each Monday, I’ll post a column-type thing with a nuanced and narrative-style look back on the past weekend’s game. This week, since the ‘Canes play tonight, the column serves as a precursor to the season. Hope you enjoy the change of pace.

Baseball is the worst.

Don’t get me wrong; I love baseball. The Chicago Cubs have been my favorite professional team since I learned about sports and there’s no greater summer day than one spent at Wrigley Field. But baseball is the worst, man. More than any other sport, it thrives on hope and the “magic of Opening Day.” Well, at least those who follow it and those who cover it say that it does. Every Opening Day in baseball, you hear the same tired cliché: “Every major league team can hope today. They’re all in first place and the slate is clean.”

No, they can’t all hope. In baseball, if you have holes in your roster, they’ll be discovered. A 162-game slog of a regular season slowly chips away at that Opening Day hope over the course of six freaking months. Sure, if your team sucks they can have a nice month or two, but your deficiencies will always be discovered. Have a leaky bullpen? It’ll get found out. Can’t hit for your life? You’ll have your moments of brilliance on the mound but it’s largely going to be a long summer. Bad starting pitching? I would look into golf or Arena Football or whatever else is on in the summer because that’s just going to be bad. Sure, there have been a tiny amount of exceptions over the years, but the chance that one of those was your team is pretty small. And if you’re a Cubs fan like me, it’s zero.

As a whole, a bad baseball team will just slowly whack away at your resolve with a plastic spoon everyday over an interminable period of time. Of course that spoon isn’t going to do much with a few whacks but after five months you’ll be ready to do anything just to take that stupid spoon and obliterate it into as many pieces as it shattered your hope into. Well, maybe you want to eat some delicious ice cream with it first for your trouble. The point is, while I love baseball, the sport offers no real hope to anyone except the juggernauts. Baseball is the worst.

It’s funny how just when you reach your breaking point with that stupid spoon, college football comes along to captivate once again. College football offers real hope. Last year, Auburn came three points away from winning the National Championship fresh off a shiny 0-8 record in the SEC. 0-8! Take the plastic spoon metaphor and replace it with a particularly heavy sledgehammer and that’s what 2012 felt like for Auburn fans. But look where they were one year later.

Ditto for Michigan State, a team with arguably the best defense in the country but an offense that would have struggled against Detroit high school squads. At least that’s how it looked for the first few games of 2013; when the smoke cleared, they could be seen exiting the Rose Bowl victorious.

There are major national success stories like that and then there’s also smaller ones that are just as important to their respective fan bases—Boston College went bowling last year; Northern Illinois had a BCS bowl appearance and a Heisman finalist in back-to-back seasons. College football offers real hope.

Sure, chances are the spoon—or something much worse—is still coming for your head. Four teams out of an every-growing list that currently sits at 129 will have a chance to win the big crown after the conference championship games.

Miami’s not going to be one of them. The Hurricanes just have far too many questions: How will a true freshman fare at the most important position on the team? Can the linebackers stay healthy? Outside of Perryman, will they even be any good anyway? Do we have defensive tackles this year or are the eminently blockable potato sacks dressed in orange and green back from a season ago? Doesn’t it kind of scare you that the guy many call the leader of the defense was a running back last year, even if he’s a remarkably versatile player? Will a walk-on punter make a critical special teams mistake at the wrong time?

But screw that.

This isn’t baseball. We won’t have our hopes and dreams as fans beaten down over six months with one day off every two weeks if we’re lucky. With such a short season, anything can happen. What if the answers to those questions are very well, yes, yes, yes, no and no, respectively? A team made it to the national championship on a tipped Hail Mary and something even more improbable than a tipped Hail Mary in two consecutive weeks last year. Auburn took hold of that sledgehammer that destroyed their 2012 season and said, “Hello, statistical likelihoods, meet our new friend.”

This year, some team is going to do the same. In all likelihood, it won’t be us. But screw likelihood. Screw logic. Screw blackouts. I know I wrote that Louisville is going to beat us by two touchdowns in the preview. If I want to be logical, I still believe that. But screw it, man. It’s college football season.

Baseball is the worst. 

This isn’t baseball.

Go ‘Canes.