Baseball, or something like that

As I just finished watching the end of the World Series (congrats to the San Francisco Giants), I couldn't help but empathize with the Detroit Tigers. Now, I don't know a lot about baseball, but I do know a lot about losing.

This was a team that people wrote off late in the season. People were asking for Jim Leyland's head. And then, they made the playoffs. Then they were winning games. They were playing well. They made it to the World Series by sweeping the Yankees. And fans all over Michigan were pumped up.

Then the series against the Giants started. And it didn't go the Tigers' way.

That doesn't mean they didn't try. That doesn't mean that they didn't want to be there. They worked hard to get to that point. If they didn't, they wouldn't have been in the World Series in the first place.

Again, I don't know much about baseball, but I do know that sometimes, you just can't overcome the odds.

Yet, I see what's going on in my Facebook feed after the game. That guy that won the Triple Crown? He's now a disappointment and overrated. That team that worked hard and made it to the World Series? A failure.

All of these comments from the people that weren't out on that field. The people that don't know what it's like to be on that team, or have the weight of Detroit on their shoulders when they're up at bat. Yet I bet there's an entire team of Detroit Tigers that are being even harder on themselves right now.

Trust me - they are asking themselves why. They are each questioning whether one little thing they could have done differently would have made a difference. They are kicking themselves for every little mistake they made. They will beat themselves up for letting YOU, the fans, down. Everything the fans are saying, they'll hear that plus the voices in their heads.

Before you judge the team from your couch, remember that you (most likely) haven't been in the situation of being in the World Series.

It will take them awhile to recover from what could potentially be a devastating loss.

But, the Tigers will be back next year. They'll learn from this defeat. Regardless of the outcome, this team went further than people thought they would. Sometimes, a team just can't overcome the odds or they just catch all the bad breaks.

We should be proud of everything they accomplished this year and support them now and in the future seasons.

BELIEVE.