First of all, it’s hard to win a professional championship. If each of our big four leagues simply rotated titles annually, NBA and Major League Baseball franchises would win once every 30 years. NFL and NHL franchises would win once every 32 years. Oops, can’t forget Major League Soccer. There, it would be once every 29 years. There’s a lot of competition out there, folks. Presumably, if you’re a sports fan, you appreciate the sport for its own sake. There is something about the activity that strikes you. Along the way, you accumulate your own historical knowledge, which can be brought to the table at any time. If you’re rooting for your team to win a title, it should be a given that you actually appreciate just what it is they are doing to begin with. If the team falls short of achieving the final goal, that doesn’t preclude you from enjoying the process. In other words, the regular season should always matter. You’re not promised a joyous final result. One aspect of just being a fan is enjoying a surprise. Last Saturday gave us Exhibit A. It was a promising autumn afternoon, with baseball playoffs and college football on the agenda. I was scrolling to get some college scores when one in the second quarter jumped out as if lit up by flashing neon lights: Vanderbilt 23, Alabama 7. What? Right away, I am scrambling. “What’s it on? SEC Network. What channel is that?” I find it and now I am hooked. Alabama is coming off a win over No. 1 Georgia and Vandy is, well, Vandy, the official punching bag of SEC football. I have to watch this. Of course, Alabama is not going to go away easily, and we wind up with a fun game and a 40-35 Vanderbilt victory . The ecstatic Vandy fans actually tore down the goalposts and took them on a 3-mile journey through downtown Nashville before throwing them into the river. It was the story of the college football season thus far, and it just dropped out of the sky. Vandy was a 22½-point underdog. When I awoke that day, I certainly had no intention of watching what I assumed would be a ‘Bama destruction of the hopeless Commodores. But the sports fan in me was enthralled and entertained. Pretty soon it will be college basketball season, and that’s when I really get annoyed. The season won’t be a week old and people will start talking about the NCAA Tournament and who will get in. There will be fun games along the way, which people will downplay as irrelevant because they didn’t have direct bearing on someone’s NCAA chances. I’m here to say there is more to college basketball life than the NCAA Tournament. It’s not just about the macro. People should just relax and enjoy the micro. The NBA and NHL have to deal with this nonsense. The postseason will take care of itself. People would be far better off assuming their team is not going to walk away as a champion with the possibility of being pleasantly surprised in the end. Enjoy your regular-season highlights. Winning a title involves many variables, starting with injuries. (By the way, I hate it when people downplay injury, because injury is usually the No. 1 reason an otherwise capable and deserving team can’t finish the job.) One final thing: This Red Sox season wasn’t a total loss for me. I hung on every Jarren Duran at-bat, hoping he’d hit one in the gap, and then I’d see whether he would wind up on second or third. Ceddanne Rafaela gave me some nice moments, too. Perhaps I’m easily pleased, but that guy kept me involved all season. The Patriots are a mess; we all know that. But we have the Celtics and Bruins. I’m sure they’ll each give us some pleasure to get us through the winter. Don’t aggravate yourself worrying about the spring. It will come soon enough.
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