Jinxes, Fans & Curses

A few things have caught my eyes lately on Facebook. I am a member on a few Baseball-themed Facebook groups, and the topics have me a bit riled up as of late.

JINXES

For example, Sports Illustrated featured the 2016 Chicago Cubs on the cover of their issue as 2016 World Champions, and by doing so it sparked talks of the fact that the Cubs are cursed & now Sports Illustrated has supposedly jinxed them now.

Let's start with the fact that THERE IS NO SPORTS ILLUSTRATED COVER JINX!!!

This has been the most ridiculous, overrated nonsense I have ever heard, I cringe whenever people start talking of the SI cover jinx, to the same degree of someone dragging their nails across a chalkboard or to the pain of having to sit through a Taylor Swift song. Personally, I think the Madden video game cover curse has more of a track record to back itself up.

There is no SI cover jinx, this nonsense really took ground back in the mid-to-late 1980's when Sports Illustrated on a few occasions placed John Elway & the Denver Broncos on the cover, picking them to win, which they came up empty for the 1986, 1987 & 1989 seasons. Let me remind you that the Super Bowl is a 50/50 chance, and back in the day they only put one of the teams on the preview cover, now they find away by putting both teams on cover.. sometimes above on the title flap portion (topics in the issue)... so this means, we are guaranteed that one teams' fan-base will scream JINX! ... even though both teams are now featured on the cover!

The Buffalo Bills certainly didn't help deflate this nonsense, when the Bills would smoke most of their AFC opponents & then didn't show up for 4 straight Super Bowls.. Plus let's be honest Dr.Z was lousy as making predictions!

There has been numerous times where a team or sport athlete went on to success. Take SI record (most covers) cover boys, Muhammad Ali and Michael Jordan -- these two went on to finish their business! There has also been Michael Phelps and Tiger Woods, both put on the covers, went on to succeed as well. I think one of the more recent 'jinxes' happened with the last issue Rhonda Rousey was deemed unstoppable & then she lost, and had to get rushed to the hospital... even in this case, she was featured at least 3 times before in which she went on to win.

For all the 'jinxes' you can put on the table, I will come back with plenty more covers that over-turn your proof... There is simply no jinx! Even Sports Illustrated has to be sitting back thinking this is absurd, but they won't deny it either, this is one of the things that keep SI relevant or trending.

Micheal Jordan's many covers & many successes.

I have repeated this subject over & over to the wife, and occasionally on Facebook groups about it as well. She has suggested in the past that I should write on the subject, and I got that extra motivation to do so recently, thanks to the San Francisco Giants' fan-base.

FANS

Every team has their fans & those teams' fans have their trademarks... Pittsburgh Steelers fans have the Terrible Towels, the St. Louis Cardinals are a dedicated sea of red in the stands, the Green Bay Packers are 'Cheeseheads', while Detroit Lions fans are just a hopeless, sad bunch... We don't talk harsh to Lions fans, we treat them like recovering alcoholics, patting them on the shoulder, in which we encourage them that everything will be alright & that the next day will be better. I personally can't speak much smack about the Lions... I am a Dallas Cowboys fan, you know... as in 'America's Team', although can we really call ourselves that anymore?! The Cowboys in recent years have not been much better than the Lions.

But let's get back on track here, so there is all these fan bases, THEN there is THAT fan base! -- The San Francisco Giants fan base! Now before I start teeing off on the Giants, let it be known that I do have a friend in Mike Miller, who is a wonderful guy, a guy who'll give you the shirt off his back, who happens to be a Giants fan, he loves his team & is truly faithful to his beloved Giants, but at the same time he NEVER comes off as annoying as the typical Giants fan does.

I decided to mention this fan base for a few reasons. They are now facing the heavily-favored Chicago Cubs in one of the National League Divisional Series; Vegas odds have the Cubs with best chances of winning the World Series at 9-5, followed by the Boston Red Sox (9-2), Texas Rangers (5-1) & Los Angeles Dodgers (5-1). The San Francisco Giants are 12-1 odds, and yes... it's an even year, so according to a typical Giants fan it's written on the same stone slabs that Moses handed out, saying the Giants shall not fail!

Of course, as predicted Giants fans (along with jinx supporting baseball fans in general) pointed at the recent Sports Illustrated cover (penning the Cubs as prophetic champions) -- noting that the Cubs will be jinxed by the all-mighty SI jinx, and that they will be unable to overcome the completely irreversible curse... although their present GM Theo Epstein did this with a once-cursed franchise in the Boston Red Sox (2004).

I love October for the following reasons....

• I was born October 28th, 1976
• I always loved autumn & Halloween.
• Our wedding anniversary is October 7th, 2006 (Today).
• Playoff Baseball
• Football season -- I loved playing football in the backyards with friends, to the smell of burning leaves & changing colors.

The ONE reason I hate October...

• San Francisco Giants fans

These fans get overly excited about every single play in the entire season, they make their mark on the internet with such bravado about their team, in the same way as Kanye West & Kim Kardashian love sending out self-absorbed tweets on a nightly basis.

It never used to always be this way, the Giants were not expected to do much entering the 2010 MLB Season & have not really had any success since their World Series collapse in 2002. It was easy to get behind this team for the 2010 World Series, Tim Lincecum was easily one of my favorite players in all of baseball. I rooted for them in 2010, and they won it against a tough Texas Rangers team... personally, I was just glad the New Yankees were not there.

Then came 2012, my beloved Detroit Tigers ran into the San Francisco Giants. We lost the series, while I also had to sit there & listen to Giants fans running their mouths, saying we had no business going there; The Tigers suffered the same consequences like in 2006, by sweeping our ALCS counterpart, and then sit for 5-6 days while we cooled off. I won't sit here & make excuses, but I think it would have been a much better series, if both teams were battle-ready. I will say the mid-season acquisitions of Hunter Pence & Marco Scutaro were bona fide moves by the Giants' brass, while those moves paid dividends.

It'll take more than Superman to pull off a 2016 miracle.

The Giants (or should I say Madison Bumgarner?) won it in 2014, now giving the annoying fan in orange a right to shout 'even year' over & over for 2016! Looking back at 2014 & their season numbers, I'm still scratching my head on how they even got there.

But let us talk about these 2016 San Francisco Giants, shall we? The team was 57-33 at the All-Star break, they have been 30-42 since (.417 winning pct) -- finishing at 87-75, 2nd place & by the skin of their neck, they reached the playoffs & defeated the New York Mets in the N.L. Wild Card team.

Time to take note, Giants fans, these are not the same Giants of previous championship years, your over-ridiculous luck will eventually run out. Although, their team ERA is 3.76 & their OPS is .728 --which is eerily similar to 2012's numbers, odds are the better teams will finally pull through... or at least for the sake of Baseball, I hope it does... this will go down as one of the biggest upsets in MLB history if these Giants defeat the Cubs, even with all that playoff experience backing San Fran. This time, Bruce Bochy is up against Joe Maddon, who is equally brilliant in his own right. Sorry Giants fans, no more Matt Williams making horrible decisions (taking out Jordan Zimmermann /2014 NLDS) to help you out this time!

There was a time when the one team I absolutely hated was the New York Yankees, the Chicago White Sox (division foe of Tigers) would eclipse them from time to time with that label... Now, it goes...

1) Giants   

2) White Sox   

3) Yankees

CURSES

Once upon a time, there was a New England franchise that was so cursed that every time they got so close to success, they would find a way to completely fall on their face. There was the sale of Babe Ruth, then Bucky Bleepin' Dent, Bill Buckner's blunder & Aaron Boone, this team the Boston Red Sox was forever to be cursed with no hope in sight, then 2004 happened, then 2007 & then 2013, and the rest is history.

Now that same General Manager (Epstein) in Boston then, is the man in charge for the Chicago Cubs, for another franchise cursed by a Billy Goat, plagued with black cat sightings & a man named Bartman.

They are the best team on paper from top to bottom, Jason Heyward is batting 7th for crying out loud! Certainly they have no chance right? A curse is a curse in the same way that the city of Cleveland was cursed, but oh...
that's right...
curses end.

Cleveland rocks?! First pro title since 1964.

Lebron James & the Cleveland Cavaliers ended the 'curse' that plagued the city since the 1964 Cleveland Browns won a title (before the Super Bowls).

It is truly time for the best team to win the season again for MLB Baseball, I personally think this Chicago Cubs team is something truly special, and I believe they will finish what they started. Do I think there are curses? I'm more on the fence with this [than with jinxes]...

Overall, I think there can be a lot of bad luck, and that long droughts of coming up short or just flat-out losing just end up sinking into the minds of the players & fans.... I think the Detroit Lions fall into this boat, even though I do believe the Lions win the Super Bowl, that hell has completely frozen over. There is always going to be a baseball franchise that has gone for some time without winning the World Series, there is 30 teams & there are more playoff teams in today's playoff system, so the odds are much tougher. My Detroit Tigers have not won a World Series since 1984, and until 2006, they missed the playoffs every year from 1988 through 2005! Even after 2006, us Tiger fans had to wait another 5 years, then we were rewarded with four straight division titles from 2011-2014, and after all that, we are still empty-handed...

..so are we cursed? Hell, no!

Does it start to all creep into our minds, as fans? Definitely, as I am sure the players start to feel the cities' expectations start to put weight on their shoulders... this is the difference between champions & hopeful challengers. This is where a Giants fan has the right to be proud of their franchise, because their team came out as champions, while the losing fan bases scratch away, hoping we can catch that sweet taste of success once again... or for some, for the very first time.

Do I still find most Giants fans still annoying?

You betcha!