North Star Writers Group

It was a huge relief to watch Lebron & Co. take apart the Pistons last night. As I explained last week, no one but Detroit fans could have possibly wanted to see the Pistons in the final against the Spurs.

Looking back on my prediction that the Pistons would beat the Cavaliers, I started to ponder the inevitable catch-22 that occurs when picking against the team you would prefer to win. When the final horn sounds, you either feel happy and stupid or sad but smart. After breaking down this complex psychological situation, I found it to be a fairly accurate barometer for what kind of sports fan you are.

There are four primary categories.

The first category is the most ideal one. Members of this category have managed to retain both love for their team and personal sanity. It includes those who would much rather be wrong than right when picking their team to lose. To them, damaged pride pales in comparison to victory. If only we were also such pure sports fans. I call this the “Survivor” category, because its members are generally characterized by long, emotionally stable lives. You might be a member of this category if you have any non-sports hobbies, or if, after rooting passionately for your team for an entire season only to see them finish one game out of the playoffs, you are able to get up and go to work the next morning.

The second category is called the “Ha! I knew it!” category. It includes those who intentionally predict against their team, so if their team does happen to lose, they can say “Ha! I knew it!” and walk around proudly as if they had just been awarded a cherry danish. This is a rampant and disgusting syndrome among sports fans.

It is common among bandwagon jumpers, because it is easy for them to emotionally detach. The truth about them is that they never really cared. They are simply boring people without lives who decided to hang around cool people, assuming that one can learn to be a true sports fan by osmosis – a very common and annoying misperception.

It is also widespread among fans whose teams win too much. The truth about them is that they have become fat with victory. This kind of sports fan is so completely out of shape that they have forgotten what hunger feels like. They feel proud and entitled to winning, and so if their team happens to lose, they deny whatever pain or disappointment they may feel by saying that they predicted the outcome, whether they really did or not. It is an extremely unhealthy lifestyle.

It is also common among fans whose teams lose too much. They are so calloused that they cannot endure the pain of defeat without the fleeting comfort of predicting it. It is a sad and pathetic state in which to be. Correction, it is a sad and pathetic city in which to be. Cleveland, like Philadelphia, is littered with fans of this ilk, as they are the only city with at least three major sports teams in the midst of a longer championship drought than Philadelphia. I wish them well, as an NBA Championship would certainly start the healing process.

The third category is called the “Twitterpated” category. Its constituency is made up of those who are blinded by the love of their team and will always, no matter how outmatched, predict that their team will come out on top. I find them to be the most endearing type of sports fan. But becoming a member of this category is very dangerous. Although the joy of victory is unparalleled, the devastation of losing is almost too much for these sports fans to bear. It’s like a guy who falls head over heels for every girl he meets. The whole story, from butterflies to broken heart, is unbearable to watch. Members of this category tend to die young.

As I mentioned at the beginning, when predicting against your preferred team, the resulting emotion is either a combination of feeling sad and smart or happy and stupid. The fourth category is comprised of the former. It is called the “Fantasy League.” It gets its nickname from the enormously popular world of “fantasy” sports, whose participants don’t care about any particular team. They care about the name on the back of the jersey, not the one on the front. Members of the Fantasy League are not true sports fans. They would much prefer to be right than to see their team win – that is, if they have a team. I’m not 100 percent sure, but I fear that this increasingly popular sect is one of the most dangerous viruses the sports world has ever seen. Once you get sucked in, I doubt you’ll ever come back. If you intend to remain a sports fan, I implore you, dabble cautiously. You can be sure you’re a member of this category if you ever jump off the couch and do a fist-pump when a touchdown is scored against your home team because the receiver was on your fantasy team. If this is you, don’t walk away from your fantasy leagues. Sprint.

Similar to a nationality, or perhaps better, a breed of dog, few of us are full-fledged members of any of these four categories. For example, I happen to be a blend between the Twitterpated and “Ha! I knew it!” categories. Of course, if you are from New York, and especially if you’re a Yankees fan, you are probably a “Ha! I knew it!” purebred.

If you’re not sure where you fall as a sports fan, start paying a bit more attention to who you root for, who you pick to win and how you feel afterwards. (And I’d love to know the results. Let me know what city you’re from, too!) If you happen to be from Cleveland, I’ll admit that I’m concerned for you. If you’re not a Survivor or at least a “Ha! I knew it!” then the next few weeks might be a little rough. Although I’m pulling for Lebron & Co., I’m picking the Spurs in seven, and I swear it’s not just a cheap way to ease the pain of yet another laborious Spurs championship.

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This is Column # NS058. Request permission to publish here.