Dreary Realities in Redleg Nation

Being that the Redlegs have now won three in a row, I feel like there is something to gloat or be excited about. However, recent history and the predictions of naysayers have taken hold of the best optimism I have and shoved it elsewhere.

But, I started thinking tonight about my own fandom, which is immense and resembles idolatry at times, and the fandom of all Redleg Nation. Its hue, scent, and/or simple makeup seems to be much unlike that of the regular powers; the San Francisco Giants, St. Louis Cardinals, Boston Red Sox, to name a few of recent memory. It seems to me that when those teams go on bad sprees of play (i.e. Giants losing 8 in a row last week) their fans hate it and there is doubt, but there isn't the type of doubt that resembles the doubt of our own Nation. Perhaps we have something that is uniquely different that within the proud history of the Reds which has won 5 world championships, had a few of the most spectacular players, and arguably the greatest team of all time. I know certainly we don't have the defiance of reality that those North-siders in Chicago have, or the simple dread fans have in cities where they have good teams year and again yet simply don't win the big ones. No, I believe, that at some point the fan base of the Reds, perhaps contracted by the emanation of perpetual substandard results by that other Cincinnati pro sports team, became so cynical that the very energy that fans create when the Reds lose just 3 game in a row, or are 'expected' by national outlets to be bad, so affects the psyche of the base and therefore of the team itself that there is perpetual expectation and resulting bad fortune.

I don't like it, but there is something to the cynicism of being a Reds fan these past few years. And, to put it plainly: it ain't good.

+NS