Everybody wants to cheer a winner. Everybody wants his or her team to be a champion.
But what if you're an Atlanta Braves baseball fan this morning? Or a Minnesota Twins fan, which is the American League's inept mirror image of our Bravos?
What then? Both teams entered Monday with identically wretched 16-40 records, tied for the worst in all of major league baseball. The Braves will stand 16-41 or 17-40 by the time you read this, following Monday's late game at San Diego.
Either way, it's all but impossible to imagine any scenario by which either squad could reach the playoffs.
But they could stage a race for worst. After all, NBA teams have been tanking for years to get the No. 1 draft pick. Heck, the Philadelphia 76ers - and George Washington and those guys surely wish they'd change their names out of respect to this country's most important winners - have pretty much made it their mantra to finish last each season, which is why they'll have the No. 1 pick in this month's draft.
The baseball draft that begins this Thursday is a less certain thing, of course. For every overall No. 1 pick already in the Hall of Fame (Ken Griffey Jr., 1987) or almost assuredly headed there (Chipper Jones, 1990), there's a Brien Taylor ('91) and Steve Chilcott ('66) who never even made it to the majors.
So playing to lose certainly has its risk as a draft strategy.
But the Braves and Twins are losing at an epic pace. At their current rates of futility they'll finish 46-116 for the season. The Braves organization has to go back to 1935, the Boston Braves finishing 38-115 (.248) to find a winning percentage worse than the current team's .286 clip heading into the San Diego series.
As for the Twins, no team in that franchise's semi-proud history has finished as bad as Minnesota's current winning percentage since the 1949 Washington Senators were 50-104 (.325).
Point is, if the fans can't realistically dream about October baseball, they can all climb aboard the Losers Train. First one to a guaranteed worst gets a pity party, complete with stale beer, cold hot dogs and melted ice cream cones.
OK, so maybe they should get something more fun. Let's say a giant fireworks show as soon as one team can no longer overtake the other. Maybe free Dokes, nachos and Dippin' Dots for the first 30,000 fans and giant popcorn tubs (on top of the Cokes, nachos and Dippin' dots) for however many fans it takes to sell the place out.
Oh, and for the top 200 fans who can bring in the most ticket stubs from this lost season, free season passes in the upper level for next year.
Maybe this is fair to the current rosters and maybe not. The Braves do seem to be trying for interim manager Brian Snitker, for whom they now stand 7-12 (before Monday) since Snitker replaced Fredi Gonzalez. Though Hall of Fame player Paul Molitor has struggled as a manager this year, the Twins went 83-79 last year in his first year on the job.
But whatever the reasons for these diamond duds, it's time to quit hoping for the best and start hoping for the worst. Fail for fireworks. Pop out for popcorn. Just lose, baby. Over and over and over again.
None other than longtime "Prairie Home Companion" radio host Garrison Keillor even has given Braves bashers a reason to root against the team the rest of the year. Having taken his show on the road to Atlanta's Fox Theatre this past weekend for a final time before he reportedly will retire next year, Keillor took a few shots at the Braves moving from Turner Field to their new home, SunTrust Park, in Cobb County before the start of next season.
According to the transcript, Keiller took issue with the club's decision to abandon The Ted, which, in his words, is "one of the most beautiful ballparks in the history of baseball," for "an ugly new field in the midst of miles of shopping malls and office parks."
He further added, "I'm talking about Cobb County, the northern suburbs that have no public transportation to speak of - just freeways that turn into parking lots. These fiscal conservatives who pay schoolteachers in paper clips have ponied up half a billion dollars so the Braves can leave a fine old ballpark and move a few miles north."
It's neither a bad argument nor an unsound reason to root for loss after loss from this point forward, until the Braves have overrun the Twins for the worst record in the majors.
Then just hope Atlanta's front office is smart enough, or at least lucky enough to spot the next Chipper Jones rather than the next Brien Taylor in next year's draft.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.