Curses

Here in Philadelphia, there is joy. Baseball is about the third-favorite sport in this town, but most people are just happy that the Phillies' NL East crown means that the Mets' self-destruction is complete. I, for one, ache.

I've lived in Philly for 15 years, and the Phils are the only local team I've adopted, and they have not been in the playoffs since 1993. Yet my stomach knots for my real baseball team. I am a Mets fan by birth and right. If you love sports, you know what moments like their season's end mean in both the cosmic and statistical senses of the word. My mother won't even take my calls because I live in Philadelphia. This isn't just the end of their season. Their nightmarish late September surpasses the Phillies' own famed self-destruction of 1964. Their epic collapse is piece of history.

I was planning on having the Mets keep me comfortably distracted in October while the Jets were doing their usual thing. There is no special magic to the Jets this year. The silver lining to the Kellen Clemens and Chad Pennington storyline is that each is playing the best football he can. For Clemens, this means putting in a reasonably good performance in Baltimore three weeks ago. But for the dumb and pouty Jets fans who think that this means he should be the starter - well, I urge you to remember Richard Todd, Matt Robinson, Browning Nagle, and Glenn Foley. There is always a greener pasture in the form of a drafted quarterback for Jets fans, and that's because we still believe a bonus baby Joe Namath will lead us in an upset over Goliath again. This is absurd. Clemens will be ready someday to take the job, but not today.

Yet I know that even though Pennington went 32 for 39 this week against Buffalo and threw for 290 yards, this will not be enough to satisfy the yahoos who want to give Clemens the captain's chair. Welcome to the universe of the New York Jets fan. As good as Pennington was today, he threw two crucial interceptions in the fourth quarter at points where the game was about to shift the Jets' way. Never mind the fact that he orchestrated a perfect faked spike with seconds to go in the first half and connected on a great catch by Laverneus Coles to set up a kick by Mike Nugent. How many Jets fans saw that and thought about undoing the Curse of Marino's Fake Spike, 1994? The Jets would lose all four games of 1994 after that loss to Miami, and would then drop 28 games in two more seasons. Well, rest ye easy. Nugent's attempt against Buffalo today hit the crossbar. Another three points might have saved the game. The curse endures.

Or does it? When you're a fan of a franchise that has problems with getting and keeping good breaks, it's hard to know what exactly is going to curse you. Curses are real, even as psychological scars or as vivid reminders of already deep-seated fears. But certain acts on and off the field have a special mojo that unleash fresh hell. The Jets are cursed by many things. First, they won an impossible upset in the Super Bowl. Then they left New York City to play in Giants Stadium. There were also the the Faked Spike, the predicted greatness of the 1999 season, the Parcells departure marred by a shady attempt to keep Belichick from New England. Let's not forget how Mo Lewis' hit on Drew Bledsoe opened the door to the Brady era in Foxboro. Curses. Foiled again.

As an English teacher, I feel validation in the recent news that while students with autism and Asperger's Syndrome are likely to study math and science, manic depressives are more likely to study English in college. Obviously I studied the right thing in undergraduate life. I don't need statistics to tell me how and why I should be a Jets fan. If I enjoy the works of ancient Greece and of Shakespeare, then surely there really is only one football team to root for. Accept no substitutes.

I know that I will be an even bigger Mets fan next year. To this point, Mets' history was never filled with consistent brilliance, but this late September was a curse of the highest order. Curses inflict a cosmic damage on franchises. It took the Phillies 12 years to return to the postseason after 1964. After their collapse in 1978, the Red Sox were forced to endure Bill Buckner's error. There is mojo in the air in Queens. As a Jets fan, I can only attest to its power. I do not know the cure.