Thursday was a tough loss for both of the teams I follow, who were are fighting for their playoff lives. The Golden State Warriors upset the Denver Nuggets in Round 1 and then lost to the San Antonio Spurs in 6. I felt the Warriors fought as hard as they could battling through numerous injuries, but just could not finish it in the end. Talk about one hell of a season. This team was not supposed to make the playoffs and they did, completely exceeding expectations. I won't go into detail all of the injuries the team suffered through during the playoffs or during the season, but things look well for the future. The San Jose Sharks lost to the Los Angeles Kings 4-3 in heartbreaking fashion having to try and kill off a 5 on 3 late in the game up 3-2. Frustrating, but what can you do?
I will not go into details about how the Sharks and Warriors lost, but how social media can play a big part in ruining the fun of everything. I was texting with a friend after the games tonight and I was looking through Facebook and twitter. I follow various people across the globe and each person has their own viewpoints and reacts differently to when a team wins or loses. Everyone does this in one form or another and what bothers me the most about when a team wins or loses, is how people talk on social media. I will give a classic example that I was talking to my friend about to put this perfectly in perspective. I may not like a certain sports team, but I find a way to appreciate the way a team or a player performs that particular evening or throughout the series. A few years ago, I was given tickets to a Florida Marlins/San Francisco Giants game to be played at AT&T Park. The pitching matchup was Josh Johnson against Barry Zito. I grew up an A's fan and I will admit that I do not like the Giants. While I do not like a particular team, what I can do is appreciate what a player or a group of players are doing to try and help their team win. While I may wear neutral colors or secretly hope the other team loses, I will always appreciate a good performance. That evening Barry Zito pitched wonderfully. Many of his pitches worked and if I remember correctly Zito pitched 7 innings of scoreless baseball and I gave him a standing ovation because of his efforts. At this point I am knowledgeable enough to figure out that I am a fan of baseball at that point. I learned this because I had a really hard time getting over the Kirk Gibson home run off of Dennis Eckersley in the 1988 World Series. As an A's fan that was a horrible moment, but as a fan of baseball, what Gibson did was amazing. On the flip side, I have had non-Warrior fans come up and tell me, "Dang, I wish we had Curry on our team because he is awesome to watch" or another player. Many fans "hate" the Los Angeles Lakers and Kobe Bryant and at one point, I did too. I may not be a fan of the Lakers, but what I can do is appreciate a game by an all time great. I find this to be a privilege and an honor to watch Kobe Bryant. Many years down the road, I may be able to tell my kids that I got to see Kobe Bryant and also Michael Jordan play basketball.
As I stated in my previous posts and I will reiterate my point here is that I try to the best of my ability to look at a situation as a whole instead of one moment in time. I do know of the saying about living in the moment, which I agree with, but also at the same time, I like to realize how far I have come to appreciate things in my life. As frustrating as a team can be as a fan, you always have to keep a bigger picture that it's all just a game...
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