The Minnesota Misery

Bill Simmons loves to talk about tortured fan bases and franchises. It's actually really interesting to fully immerse yourself in the history of other cities and franchises. You begin to understand how lucky you are if you happened to have been a fan of a championship team. I consider myself lucky to be a fan of two champions: the 2000 Super Bowl Champion Rams (the most fun I've ever had watching a team and probably one of the most fun teams to watch ever) and the 2006 World Series Champion Cardinals (my favorite team on top of the world). Seeing a team raise its sports' respective trophy above their head in absurd jubilation is one of the best feelings a sports fan can ever have. It is the ultimate prize in fandom.

But there are some who have never felt the glory, or at least haven't for a generation (or two or three). There's Buffalo (1965) and Cleveland (1964) and Seattle (never). That's right, Buffalo's two teams haven't won a championship since the Bills won one before the Super Bowl existed, Cleveland's three teams have had a similar streak of futility, and Seattle has lost a franchise to a prairie town and never won any kind of professional championship. Those are definitely the three cities (if we are talking about sports cities, which we are) that currently should top the tortured list.

But I want to raise awareness about another tortured contender. One that is often forgotten in the fold. One that holds a special place in my heart because I have witnessed the pain first-hand. One that is beginning to tear at the hearts of the faithful fans.

It's a fan base that not only has to watch disgusting displays of regular season irrelevancy (most of their NBA franchise's seasons to date) but also unbelievable choke jobs (its NFL franchise in the NFC championship twice in the last 12 years, the last of which left one of my friends motionless on the floor for about half an hour). While this fan base's MLB franchise has had some successes and won a championship in the last 20 years (1991), it lost its NHL franchise in 1993, only to watch them win the Stanley Cup in another city in 1999 and have it's new NHL franchise (founded in 2000) pretty much suck for 11 years. Did I forget to mention that this fan base is in state where hockey is the most popular? Throw in the fact that the state of these franchises only has one Division I college. The two major sports teams at that university, football and basketball, haven't won a national championship since 1960 (in football, which no one remembers or really considers legitimate) and haven't even won a conference titles in those sports since 1967 (football) and 1982 (basketball). That's six teams in a state of around 5.5 million people which have won 1 championship in the last 30 years.

If you haven't figured it out by now, I'm talking about the Minneapolis/St. Paul/basically all of Minnesota fan base. The six teams I mentioned earlier have a track record that looks a little something like this:

(Sorry if the last column gets cut off ever so slightly)

If that doesn't spell misery, then I have lost my grasp on the definition of that word. This is so much misery in comparison to other cities. The previously mentioned tortured fan bases only have 2 or 3 teams. Minneapolis has 4 (not counting college, they were pretty much added for dramatic effect). And they are all killing their fans slowly but surely.

Keep in mind that most of the people I know from Minnesota who are sports fans are around 22 years of age. That means they were 2 when the Twins won their last World Series (aka it never happened in their minds). I was there to witness fan reactions to the Favre interception in the 2010 NFC Championship game. Anger at Favre's inability to swallow his pride and throw the ball away turned into an uneasiness, this uneasiness slowly changed into desperate angst, and when the Saints kicked the field goal in overtime, the angst became shock (as I previously stated, one of my friends lay comatose on the floor for about 30 minutes, give or take a few). Sadly, I have accepted some of these teams as my own (I attended the University of Minnesota). I know not the pain my friends do, but I know what it's like to be cheering for the futility that has been some of Minnesota's sports (Gopher football and basketball).

The worst thing about the misery might just be that you hope that the Vikings or Twins don't kick you in the crotch repeatedly, in order to rescue you from the sad despair of the Minnesota winter, but they always do. When October hits in Minnesota, say good bye to above freezing temperatures until the middle of March. When you think some solid sports teams might just save you during the brutal winter months, those teams act like Scut Farkus in A Christmas Story. Except there is no "Ralphie's Redemption" in this story.

I usually gave my friends a hard time and "cheered" for the teams opposing the Vikings or Twins or Wild (people have literally given up on the T-Wolves). But secretly, I was always hoping for the long, long winter that is the Minnesota sports drought to end. I wanted the city I had lived in for three years to feel like champions again. To see their team raise the Cup or Lombardi or the Commissioner's Trophy and feel as if they were a part of something.

So, with that in mind, I have an announcement to make. I have grown to like the NBA. I like it so much that I can no longer stand not having a cheering interest in the league. As a sign of solidarity with my Minnesota brethren, I now, on Dorm Room Doldrums, announce that I am officially considering myself a Timberwolves fan, which I will only revoke in the rare occasion that St. Louis gets a NBA franchise again. I will further assert my seriousness in this situation by purchasing a T-Wolves hat and wearing it proudly. I am very excited to watch Ricky Rubio dish out to Beasley, K-Love, and Wesley Johnson, I hope that David Kahn gets fired sometime soon, and that we become relevant in a stacked Western Conference in the near future. Most of all, I hope that Minnesota once again becomes champions, whether it be the T-Wolves or someone else.

Because let's be honest, it's been a long, long time coming.

(This post is dedicated to Nick, Jay, John, Ryan, and Kelli. Remember guys, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies. I will be hoping that this post finds you, and finds you well. Your friend, Mark.)