The Battle of the Bad Bullpens

The Reds lost again tonight. Fucking a great. I swear, we have to be the best club in the majors for come back losses. We always seem to go into the 8th or 9th losing, come back to tie or lead, and then give the game away with bad pitching from the bullpen. I figured we could do it tonight against Atlanta (yes, I live in GA and don't like the Braves) since they lead the NL in blown saves (we have 13, they have 18 or something). And what do you know? In the 9th we came back to score 5 runs to tie it up, but lost in extra innings again. Why does my sports life suck?
I was talking to lada about this a few days ago and we determined that we have the worst fan luck of anyone. To be fair, she is a Cubs fan so she is far and away ahead of the curve. Yeah the Reds haven't been spectacular lately, but I would rather drink acid than be a Cubs fan. Yikes. Anyway, all of my teams seem to always just be right there, but they never deliver the big ones. A few examples:

Germany lost their semi-final World Cup match 0-2 on July 4th. This was a good match, but the last couple of minutes proved to be excruciating to watch. I really figured that with Brazil out of the tourney, that we (and by we I mean the Germans) would have a great shot to win the whole Cup at the least. Reality is that we were the odds-on favorites. I wouldn't say we blew it; it was a tough match and Italy is a tough team (even though they like to fix their matches). To be honest, I was probably the only person watching not wanting it to go to penalty kicks. Sure we are undefeated in them and Italy has never won, but penalties are tough. I'm not a huge fan when it's my team on the line, and they are hard to watch. But I also didn't want to lose in the final two minutes of extra time. Fuck me.

The UGA football team is the quintessential almost-there team. I can't really complain too much because we have had great success under head coach Mark Richt, but sometimes I wonder what could have been. We always lose to Florida, we always seem to have a shot to play for the national championship, and to top it off we lost against West Virginia last season in the Sugar Bowl when we should have walked all over them. I mean, I went to school with the NCAA's number one winning quarterback -- a guy named David Greene who won more games than Peyton Manning -- and we never even played for the national championship. It all seems so unfair sometimes.

I was telling lada that I think I blew all my good sports moments at a young age. Germany was a powerhouse and was winning World Cups before I had started playing soccer and knew anything about it. They always seem to finish just shy these days.
I also witnessed the best baseball moment of my life when I was . . . three. It's one of my earliest memories, but I definitely remember the moment when Pete Rose broke Ty Cobb's hit record on September 11, 1985. That's a big thing to remember, especially for a toddler who loved Pete and loved the Reds before anything else in sports. Of course, I owe a lot of that to my Cincinnati-area born and bred parents, but boy-howdy, what a moment! I'm scared I won't have anything like that left in my life. At least I can rest easy knowing that I am a fan. A true fan. I mean, how hard can it be to root for Brazil, the Yankees, USC, and Miami?

The Dunce-cap Marvel is a strong believer that Wayne Krivsky can bring a championship home. The Cincinnati Reds are National League baseball. I so love my Reddies! Und ich liebe Deutschland!