This extends well beyond sports, of course, but it seems every day lately has brought a new shipment of “it absolutely doesn’t have to be this way, a vast majority of people see this with extreme clarity, and yet: here it goes: the worst possible outcome, yet again.”

It’s enough to make a person wish, just for a moment, that they could turn off the ability to care. “What good is that little helpless emotion in the face of all this? Why care if it doesn’t change anything?”