It’s going to be another short one, just so you don’t forget about us, as Brad is still not fully back (psychologically or emotionally) from his trip, but we’ll be back in earnest next week, both in this space and with the streaming schedule. It’s been a weird summer and we appreciate your patience.

I don’t know a lot about the rules of Gaelic football. Almost nothing, in fact.¹ I know even less about how the competitions and league work. As far as I can discern, they function somewhat similarly to how county cricket does in England, with each of Ireland’s historical counties putting together their own team to compete in leagues/tiers based on recent and historical success. Though, unlike England, it also appears that none of the players are paid, seemingly at all, but definitely not for their participation in the season or subsequent tournament.

What I do know about Gaelic football has happened as a result of what happened this past Sunday, when County Mayo won the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship:

As you may have been able to discern by the increasingly delirious yelps of the commentators, this was a big fucking deal.

And not just because it’s always a big deal to win a national championship on any level in any sport. It was a big deal — the kind of deal where you lose your mind vacillating between previously unfathomable joy and the dread that comes with having your dreams stolen away from you when they are within your grasp — because the team who won, Mayo, did so for the first time since 1951.

Which was, as the legend goes, when the team, who had just won the two previous cups, (allegedly) encountered a funeral procession and, after not reacting to it with the proper reverence, basically had a priest respond thusly:

More specifically, they were cursed to never win another title until every member of the team who won had died, which (tragically? shockingly? it was a long ass time ago) took until 2023 to happen. That is took another three years for them to win the title may be suspicious to those skeptical as to whether or not something like is real. But for anyone who knows anything about sports and curses knows that there is sometimes a lag for these things, as the sports gods are exceedingly vengeful against these kind of transgressions.

Which, believe me, for all I don’t know about Gaelic football, I do know about sports curses. As a Red Sox fan for much of the last thirty years, even just catching what was essentially the tail end of the almost century-long Curse of the Bambino period that started after Sox owners sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees to finance the play “No, No Nanette,” was the kind of thing that permeated every thought and feeling of triumph or despair until it finally lifted in 2004. That is happened just a week after forcing the Yankees into the biggest collapse in the history of major American sports in that year’s ALCS felt not just like destiny, but a heroes’ journey for both fans and franchise alike.

As although curses are fun to talk about and pretend like they are real, what they can do to a place and its people is real. The idea that the world is out to get you is one thing — and it’s a thing that has led to many many championships from a historical perspective — but the idea that the cosmos themselves have it in for you is another thing entirely. Like being in an abusive relationship with intangibility, curses that are deeply felt within a community can wreak havoc on nearly everything, as every decision can be about trying to appease an incorporeal spirit as opposed to, you know doing the basic “blocking and tackling” of making smart decisions that benefit your team in the long and short term.

And, of course, things are a little different for a team that is built entirely out of local kids, as the teams involved have less control over who does or doesn’t end up on the team without mechanisms like free agency and drafts. But that doesn’t make them better or worse, because while many of them are elite athletes, they are also still humans. Still having to deal with the pressures with representing (in both a literal and metaphorical sense) the place you grew up and who you grew up around. Wanting to win for them is a noble endeavor, but when it’s the first time in a generation or three, pressure can build up inside.

Which is a horse of an entirely different color from worrying about living up to the champions of the past in a place like Kerry, who Mayo beat for the title, and just so happen to have the most Sam McGuire trophies² with 39 across the 139 years the tournament has been running.

The fear of not living up to expectations can be crushing, to be sure. But a fear of disappointing the people you love the most for not being able to provide them with the things they want the most is crushing, nearly every single time.

But what you learn at the end of these things is that, while nothing makes up for the time you lost worrying about when what you were hoping for would happen, you often realize that the wait was worth it because good things happening to you is ever so slightly than feeling like the universe hates you or, even worse than that, simply doesn’t care.

Just ask Nets fans.