"My team" is in the game, and I can't be the reason the Cincinnati Bengals lose again.
This tragic tale involves a jersey, a hat, fiscal responsibility, and skepticism towards superstition.
As the NFL 2021 season ends with Super Bowl LVI on Sunday in L.A., I am confronted with an impossible situation in need of a solution that requires a shrink, or a drink.
For the better of mankind, I plan to use this Super Bowl to conduct a science experiment, and prove sports' superstitions are stupid.
The arrival of the Cincinnati Bengals to the Super Bowl for the first time since 1988 is unexpected on multiple levels, including among them the fact that this run awoke the kid fan in me who once practiced superstitions while watching games.
Born in Cincinnati — not sure about the year — the Bengals of the '80s were my first true sports' team love. When you fall in love with a team during formative years, all of those names and experiences from that era stay with you forever.
This includes watching the Bengals' Super Bowl loss in 1981, after which I cried.
This includes watching the Bengals' Super Bowl loss in 1988, after which I cried.
Between growing older, and entering this profession, the fan in me is mostly gone. Hazard of the gig.
But watching the Bengals play the Raiders last month in the AFC wild-card game made all of those feelings start to come back. The kid in me really wanted to see the Bengals win their first playoff game in 31 years.
When they upset the Tennessee Titans a week later in the AFC divisional round, I was 12 again.
Buried deep in a box of clothes that should be burned was my Cincinnati Bengals No. 7 Boomer Esiason jersey. It's the same jersey I wore when the Bengals lost the '88 Super Bowl.
Still fits. (I may have worn "Husky" as a kid.)
I actually wore it as I watched the Bengals play the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC title game two weeks ago.
After they fell behind 21-3, I had no problem leaving the house. My watching may have been the problem.
As the Bengals started their comeback, I risked it all and watched. Sports superstition lore says I should not have watched.
My stomach was a collection of twist ties as they held on to a 3-point lead while the Chiefs walked down the field in the final minutes.
I couldn't turn it off, but I had to do something.
As the Chiefs reached the 10-yard line in the final minutes, I took off the jersey and tossed it on the floor. (I had on an undershirt.)
The jersey was the problem, I surmised, because they lost the last time I wore it.
The Bengals made a goal-line stand. The Bengals intercepted a pass in overtime. The Bengals won the game.
It's the jersey.
Now the Bengals are one win away from their first Super Bowl title in their history.
Thanks to my beloved 82-year-old mother, who has not thrown away anything since 1952, she mailed me my one Bengals hat. It's the same hat I wore the night the Bengals lost that Super Bowl in 1988.
(BTW: Mom and dad also have available boxes of Time magazines, cups from gas stations, some basil from 1965 as well as hardtack from the Revolutionary War. If you come by, they will give all of it to you provided you promise in writing not to throw any of it away.)
Seeing the hat again brought back fun memories, even if it smells like it was sprayed with the fragrance, "Roadkill."
My Depression-era parents successfully took a quarter-inch drill and bore it deep into my skull not to spend money when you don't have to and, I don't have to.
In preparation for this Bengals Super Bowl appearance, I already have the hat and the jersey.
On Sunday, I will wear both and whatever happens they will remain on my person until the game ends, thus proving that sports superstitions are wasteful spurts of energy.
This is for science.
(Just in case it's going bad for the Bengals, however, the hat and jersey are going to the trash. Sorry, mom.)
