Tuesday, October 09, 2012

It's a long way to Cincinnati... Go on, you @Reds

I have a long record of supporting teams that aren't, how should I put it, much good. My beloved Sussex County Cricket Club, where I would occasionally prop up the bar in the short period during which I was a member, went 164 years without winning the County Championship, before winning three in fairly short order. Sometimes, they were desperately bad, or equally desperately unlucky, but they were plucky underdogs, and were the county where my mother's family still reside.

At football, I became a Luton Town fan after a brief flirtation with QPR in the mid-seventies. And whilst they did win the League Cup (at Wembley, against Arsenal!), they are still to be found in the Blue Square Premiership.

In the early eighties, I discovered American Football, and became a follower of the fortunes of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Boy, were they bad, the team with the worst record in the National Football League in the eighties. They did, eventually, get rather better, winning a Super Bowl, but it would be fair to say that disappointment comes with the territory.

But I digress. Baseball fans amongst you will be aware that the post season is with us, and the Cincinnati Reds, a team I have followed through thin and thinner, having won their division pretty emphatically, are in with a serious shot of glory. Two up, with three home games to play in the best of five series with the San Francisco Giants, a place in the National League Championship Series beckons.

Somewhat ominously though, the last twenty-one National League teams to be in this position have all gone through to the next round. Somebody has to fail eventually though. Fingers crossed that it's someone else...

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