If you ever need to charm me when I’m at my most uncharmable, fate of the Universe on the line or the Martians have the death beam pointed at Earth you better hit it: Bring a die-hard fan of a perpetually hopeless team from an unglamorous place. The combination of failure and lack of interest from outsiders seems to force a spirit of humor and humility onto them that I can’t resist. They are experts on the causes of their team’s failure and will give an impromptu dissertation on the lack of money, poor management, undesirability of their locale, and consistent bad luck that doom their team’s past, present, and future. Then, after presenting overwhelming evidence that the team they love can’t possibly succeed, they turn around and renew their hope that this is their year. Be still my heart.

This episode consists of two interviews with exemplary sad sack lifers. The first is Andy Clark, comedian and co-host of The Payton Years, the very best podcast dedicated solely to Oregon State Men’s basketball and, as Andy points out, literally the only one. The second interview is with Chris Nakis (@chris_nakis), comedian and co-creator of Sad CLE Sports (@SadCleveland), a twitter account celebrating Cleveland’s long and storied tradition of sports failure. Taken together the interviews finally put on record everything I love about this type of fan. They confess to their team’s futility like murderers relieved to finally clear their conscious decades after the act. They turn their unwavering support into a badge of honor. They bring jokes.

I was charmed. The Martians packed up their death beam and went home.

Get full access to Seth Allen at sethallen.substack.com/subscribe