I went to my first Pirates game of the season last Monday, as Pittsburgh visited Busch Stadium for the first time of the year. The Pirates lost.
Being a lifelong Pittsburgh fan, I have come to expect the worst from the Pirates every night. My brother and I have watched nearly every Pirates game over the past four years. That’s a lot of bad baseball.
With the exception of Paul Skenes pitching every fifth game over the last 12 months, it’s been generally miserable. There have been a few bright spots: a 20-8 start to the 2023 season, which peaked with first place in the National League and ended fourth in the NL Central. And Paul Skenes has been must-watch television every start, even if the entire world is counting down the days before he hits free agency. But more or less, the rest of the roster and organization is underwhelming. The Pirates lose a lot.
Thus, I lose a lot.
I’ve always had a deep disdain for losing. While my feelings toward winning have been more or less indifferent, losing has always wounded me. My earliest memory of this sting is from 2011, when the Green Bay Packers defeated my beloved Pittsburgh Steelers in the Super Bowl. For my friends and me back then, one’s favorite NFL team was as essential to one’s being as one’s first name. I was Isaiah Atkins–Pittsburgh Steelers. My classmates were Keaton Pruett–Arizona Cardinals and Landon Carroll–Indianapolis Colts and so on.
The Steelers had won two Super Bowls in my life, so a loss seemed impossible. And yet, it happened. I was devastated. I couldn’t bear to face my friends and classmates the next day. I told my mom as much.
I was nearly ten years old. Fourteen years later, I wish I could say I handle losses better now.
This past NFL postseason, the Steelers limped into a tough matchup against the divisional arch-rival Baltimore. The game was over before halftime. It killed me to watch, so instead I walked up and down icy Seymour Avenue and wondering how God could let my favorite sports team lose.
It’s just football, I repeat to myself. It’s just a sport. Why do I care so deeply?
Part of me says that it’s just the way I am wired, that I am uber-competitive and love winning and victory, heart on the sleeve, because that’s the only way I know how. Maybe it would be easier if that were so. But I don’t think that’s it.
Truthfully, it comes down to something else, an identity crisis of sorts: those who lose are losers. I don’t want to be a loser.
A universal human aching, I reckon.
Earlier this year, I set a goal to read a book each month. For the month of April, I read “Season on the Brink,” the much-acclaimed debut of author John Feinstein as he followed around Bob Knight and his Indiana Hoosiers in the 1985-1986 season. The previous season had devastated Knight, then 45, already one of the greatest coaches in the history of the sport. Losing to Knight was more than just competition failure. Losing was more than just a referendum on his career; it was a black and white statement on his life’s value.
For the whole ‘season on the brink’, the squad was one of the top in the country, picking up quality wins and making a name as a dark-horse title contender. Still, after each practice or game where they didn’t play perfectly, Knight would mutter to his friends or Feinstein: “Do you ever think we will win again?”
For Knight, winning was not a simple joy to be celebrated but a relief, regardless of the talent of his squad or the opponents. When Knight won, he felt like the world said he was a winner; when he lost, he felt that the world declared him a loser, unworthy and unfit.
Whether it’s been me, my teams, or my favorite sports squads, losing stings so badly not because of the loss itself, but because of the social outcomes. I don’t want to be a loser, but it feels as though the world tells me differently each time the Steelers’ comeback attempt falls short, the Illini game-winning shot rims out, or the Pirates lose 12-0. Or a conference rival passes me in the last 50 meters. Loser. That feeling of inadequacy and unworthiness is hard to shake.
Thankfully, the column doesn’t end here, although too often I live as though it does.
I’m learning these days, that in my life, I don’t have to be afraid to be deemed a loser. My identity is not subject to a scoreboard. The ultimate victory was won on the cross, when my Lord Jesus Christ conquered sin and death.
While it may feel that the world deems me a loser, the Creator has a better label for me: beloved child of God, redeemed by His grace. Because of His victory, I am free to live in His grace, free to run, to compete, and to cheer on my favorite teams, knowing that the outcome does not define me (or you).
It’s easier to write this in May than it will be this September. But you can know something to be true and still have weakness.
I am thankful that Jesus gives me a definite and eternal identity above the verdicts and labels of the world. Knight didn’t seem to ever escape them. But I’m not sure he wanted to.
I’m trying to.
