Crestfallen to Angry to Elated to Anxious to Victorious. The Roller Coaster of Emotions of Game 5 of the ALCS

Why do we love sports? One reason is that is puts us much closer to our emotions than possibly anything else. That rawness makes it terrible when "we" lose and beautiful when "we" win.

In the sixth inning, I was crestfallen. Dusty Baker decided to ignore the perils of the third time through the order penalty. In quick succession, Corey Seager doubled, Evan Carter singled, and Adolis Garcia homered. Suddenly, it was 4-2 Rangers.

In the eighth inning, I was angry. Adolis Garcia was the only person in Globe Life Park who thought the Astros cared so much about him that they would endanger their chances of a comeback by intentionally hitting him. Then the umpires not to use any logic and decided the Bryan Abreu should be ejected for reducing his team’s chances of winning a close and pivotal game.

In the top of the ninth, I was astounded and elated. The Astros had gotten the first two men on via a single by Yainer Diaz and walk by Jonathan Singleton. And that led to something that is always reassuring for Astros fans—Jose Altuve striding to the plate.

You want to watch it again, don’t you. So do I. Here it is.

In the bottom of the 9th, I was so anxious. The first two Rangers hitters—Mitch Garver and Jonah Heim both singled, and suddenly the one run lead was in jeopardy. The Rangers two best hitters, Marcus Semien and Corey Seager were due. There were good reasons to be anxious.

In the bottom of the 9th, I was also relieved. Semien hit a hard liner, but it found the glove of Grae Kessinger at shortstop. Seager also hit it hard and far, 391 feet. But fortunately, he didn’t pull the ball at all, and it’s a long way to the center field fence in Arlington. Mauricio Dubon had room to corral the ball just before the warning track.

And then at the end, I was excited and relieved and fired up and excited again. I felt victorious, which I’m not entirely sure is an emotion, but it’s the best I’ve got here.

Perhaps the best way to explain my detailed and complicated set of emotions is that I was feeling exactly what Ryan Pressly was feeling after he struck out Evan Carter for the final out of the game.

NSFW. Not sorry about that.

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Why do we watch sports? There are lots of reasons. For many, it’s about the marvel of watching the combination of grace and power of the human body. For others, it is about the challenge of competition and the hope to win. For others, it is the puzzle of trying to figure out the strategy and tactics that are most helpful to solving the puzzle of trying to win. Obviously, we don’t have to limit ourself to one reason in explaining why we enjoy sports. And we also don’t have to limit ourselves to this set of explanations; they just scratch the surface.

But it seems to me that something that clearly pulls so many of us toward sports is that it puts us in touch with our emotions in ways that other activities do not. And sports puts us in touch with a wide range of emotions in such a short period of time. I went from crestfallen to angry to astounded and elated to anxious to grateful to victorious all in about an hour of real life time. What a roller coaster.

Is it possible to do that in other activities? Maybe. Many love music or drama or are competitive about their business endeavors and get disappointed by their professional difficulties or challenges in one’s personal life. But for me, nothing makes me care enough about something to make me crestfallen and angry and elated and anxious as does sports.

And no part of sports makes those emotions so raw and on the surface as does playoff baseball. It was evident again on Friday in Game 5 of the ALCS.

Nothing feels as terrible or as immediately terrible as the dread one experiences from bad things like the Garcia home run. And nothing feels as wonderful, and nothing makes the anxiety and dread and disappointment go away that the beauty of success in sports. It makes the bad stuff seem like a small price to pay for the good stuff.

Game 5 of the ALCS produced a roller coaster of emotions for me, and most likely for you. Thank goodness our boys came out on top. We get to remember this one—and the good feelings it produced—forever.