hope and fear as a sports fan

As a sports fan you live with the ultimate hope that a team that you root for can win their sport's championship. You also live with the ultimate fear that your team will throw away a golden opportunity to win a championship. As a Boston sports fan, I've lived through both in my lifetime. The fear had always been more powerful to me growing up because of Bill Buckner's error against the Mets in game 6 of the '86 world series. Watching Boston teams in the playoffs always brought about internal thoughts of "I wonder how they're going to blow this game (or series)". But after the Patriots had the miracle upset of the Rams in the 2001 Super Bowl and the Red Sox impossible comeback against the Yankees in 2004, hope has been winning out for me.

A year ago, the Celtics had finished one of the worst seasons in their history, and had also gotten the worst possible luck in the draft lottery. Now, they are one win away from being NBA champions and they did it in the most improbable fashion on Thursday night. As the road team they cut a 20 point deficit to 2 points in just the third quarter. For the game, they had been down 24 points at one point in the first half and ended up winning by 6!

I've been watching sports long enough to know that anything is possible. I've lived through it first hand when the Red Sox came back from down 3 games to none in the 2004 ALCS to beat the Yankees. So I know not to celebrate a championship until the buzzer sounds on one more win for the Celtics. But at this point my hope of them pulling it out is far far greater than my fear of them blowing it.