Last weeks inexplicable but not unexpected collapse of the Chicago Cubs in the National League Championship Series and the Boston Redsox in the American League Championship Series got me thinking about our own history of sports futility here in the Pacific Northwest. While not nearly as epic as the suffering endured by Cubs and Redsox fans, weve had our share of disappointments when it comes to the performance of our local sports teams. Cases in point:
– Its only logical to start with baseball, where this seasons Seattle Mariners team got off to a great start, only to flounder late in the season and not even make the playoffs. Maybe its just as well. During the 2001 season the Mariners won an American League record 116 games (also tying a Major League record), but it was all for naught. After beating the Cleveland Indians in a divisional series, the Mariners picked the American League Championship Series as a good time to go on a losing streak, getting spanked by the New York Yankees.
– Next, we move on to football season, which has been under way for a little while now. Way back in 1983, the Seattle Seahawks managed to make it to the American Football Conference Championship, where they played the Oakland Raiders, a team they had beaten twice during the regular season. Of course, they lost that game. The Raiders went on to win the Super Bowl.
– Now its on to basketball, where the season starts soon. Back in 1994, the Seattle Sonics had the best record in the National Basketball Association, but that didnt do them any good in the first round of the playoffs, where they became the first No. 1 seed team to lose to a No. 8 seed team, the Denver Nuggets. The Sonics did eventually make it to the NBA Finals in 1996, only to lose the series to the dynasty that was the Chicago Bulls. Well, at least the Sonics won a championship – of course that was in 1979.
The Mariners and the Seahawks cant – at least not yet – boast world championships.
My Two Cents is a weekly column where the author – a Seattle Seahawks fan who, after watching the Cubs and Redsox lose in such spectacular fashion, is beginning to rethink his position that curses are only believed by simple-minded yahoos – gets in his two cents worth in spite of the old saying that states you only get a penny for your thoughts.
