If you're reading this, chances are you're a fan of some sports team, which means you've probably had your share of days you'd like to forget.
This isn't the same as being a University of Tennessee football fan and currently living through decades you'd like to forget, though that is its own emotional nightmare.
But for one five-day stretch has any fan base anywhere endured the crushing, mind-numbing disappointment suffered by sports fans throughout the state of Georgia this past week between Wednesday and Sunday evening?
It all started a few minutes after 5 p.m. this past Wednesday when the Atlanta Braves jogged onto their SunTrust Park baseball diamond for the top of the first inning against the St. Louis Cardinals in the fifth and deciding game of their National League Division Series. Roughly 30 minutes later they headed back to their dugout on the short end of a 10-0 score.
Game over. Season over. Dreams of adding to that World Series won in 1995 over.
Whether the 13-1 final score will leave a lasting mark on this fairly young Braves team won't be known until next summer, maybe longer. It's one thing to lose a deciding game. It's another to have the starting pitcher - in this case Mike Foltynewicz - fighting back tears in the losing clubhouse.
And while the Braves have certainly experienced a long string of postseason failures - 10 straight lost series, tying the Chicago Cubs for that embarrassing level of futility, though that covered a span of 88 years rather than Atlanta's 18-year stretch - this one felt a bit different, if only because it was so unexpected.
After all, a game earlier they had been within four outs of advancing to the NLCS. Now the Braves were an embarrassment, the first playoff team in major league history to trail 10-0 going into the bottom of the first.
Georgia wide receiver Demetris Robertson (16) misses a catch while being defended by South Carolina defensive back Jammie Robinson (7) in overtime of a NCAA football game between Georgia and South Carolina in Athens, Ga., on Saturday, Oct. 12, 2019. South Carolina won 20-17 in double overtime. (Joshua L. Jones/Athens Banner-Herald via AP)But the Peach State's Foul Five sports days were just beginning, because on Saturday afternoon the No. 3 Georgia Bulldogs welcomed neighboring South Carolina to Sanford Stadium for what the oddsmakers predicted would be anywhere from a three-touchdown win to a 24.5-point siesta between the hedges.
Now the wise guys in Las Vegas occasionally miss a spread by five to seven points, though they don't miss many or all those high rise hotels and fancy casinos would look more like giant trailer park in the Nevada desert.
Gambling, not Wayne Newton concert ticket sales, built Las Vegas and gambling sustains it.
Yet those same oddsmakers haven't been this far off since Buster Douglas shocked Mike Tyson in the boxing ring in February of 1990 after Douglas entered the ring as a 42-1 underdog.
South Carolina not only beat the spread, it won the game 20-17 in double overtime. Predicted by many to reach the College Football Playoff for the second time in three years, UGA - having fallen to No. 10 in this week's Associated Press poll - must now hope to win out in the regular season, then knock off either Alabama or LSU in the SEC title game, no small feat.
But as bad as that loss was for Bulldog Nation - as shocking in its own way as the Dawgs' last two losses to Alabama inside Atlanta's Mercedes Benz Stadium - since one cost Georgia the 2017 national championship and the second cost it a playoff spot a year ago, Sunday's Atlanta Falcons-Arizona Cardinals game would bring no brief reprieve from the misery.
Atlanta Falcons kicker Matt Bryant (3) walls to his bench after missing the point after against the Arizona Cardinals during the second half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2019, in Glendale, Ariz. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)Instead, it only made it worse. Having fallen 17 points behind, the forlorn Falcons somehow scored with less than two minutes to play to seemingly force the Cardinals into overtime. All they needed was the normally reliable kicker Matt Bryant to kick an extra point.
Instead, in keeping with the sports week that wasn't in Georgia, the 44-year-old Bryant missed. And the Falcons lost for the fifth time in six games, leading to widespread speculation that team owner Arthur Blank may part ways with Falcons coach Dan Quinn by the end of the month.
It's not just the Braves, Bulldogs and Falcons who are struggling, either. The NBA's Atlanta Hawks entered Monday night's exhibition game at Miami with an 0-2 preseason record. Now 1-5 on the season, Georgia Tech could make a case for being he worst FBS team in the country. Even the Atlanta United MLS team looks anything but certain to repeat its championship.
There is also, of course, the hangover of previous heartbreaks. The blown 28-3 Super Bowl lead by the Falcons against the Patriots a few years back. The Bulldogs' aforementioned losses to Alabama. Enough Braves postseason defeats to send a therapist into therapy.
How much sports pain and suffering can one state take? And for how much longer before every sports venue in the Peach State is required to post signs: "Caring could be dangerous to your health"?
There's always hope for better days, of course. Despite its loss to South Carolina, Georgia is currently tied with Wisconsin for the sixth shortest odds to win the CFP national championship with odds of 14-to-1 on Sportsbetting.ag. Mathematically, the Falcons could yet reach the playoffs. The Hawks are only in the preseason.
Still, as the Falcons' Quinn noted Sunday, "You put everything into it, and I told the team, knowing you could get your heart broken. That is was happened today."
Actually, for Peach State sports fans, that's what happened three times over five foul days this past week. Whatever odds Vegas might place on that happening, if you're a sports fan in Georgia, the chances of your favorite team breaking your heart these days seem close to 100 percent.
Mark WiedmerContact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.