Die-hard Dedication to Disheartening Disappointment: The life of a Cleveland Sports fan

"There's always next year"--a saying that I've heard my dad mutter year after year, disheartened at the conclusion (or near conclusion) of every Cleveland team's sports season, whether that be the Browns, Indians, or Cavaliers.

For me, the team that particularly pulls at my heartstrings are my beloved Cleveland Indians. Every year, no matter how mediocre-at-best the future seems, I await the first day of baseball like its Christmas morning. Because for me, a game at "the Jake" (ok, Progressive field) is like Christmas morning: the booming sound of Tommy Hamilton's voice equivalent to Santa's cheery "ho, ho, ho!"; fans joyously singing "Take me out to the ballgame"  equivalent to Christmas carols; even the rubbery taste of dollar dogs equivalent to warm Christmas cookies.

Why all this excitement if every year, the Tribe falls (sometimes) heart-breakingly short of even a Wild Card spot? Even this year, as the days of September slowly trickle by, I haven't let myself give up hope. You see, they have me caught. Kluber will pitch an amazing game and they will win five or six in a row, finally breaking through the 500 mark, and then come back and lose the next four. Or Chisenhall will come through with an ungodly amount of RBI's, and then they will get swept by the damn Detroit Tigers. One step forward, two steps back.

Why do I let myself get so invested if year after year I am just left with disappointment? Is it because that is the Cleveland way: to dust yourself off and through the rubble of another butchered season look, with fresh faced optimism, at the glimpse of hope that lies just on the horizon of next April?

I honestly couldn't tell you. What I can tell you is this: I am one Tribe fan who is tired of defending mediocrity, sick of checking my ESPN app only to see a toppling loss, and most of all, I am one Indians fan who is dying to see the Tribe win a World Series in my lifetime. Just one.