Scott Davis has followed Gamecock sports for more than 30 years and provides commentary from a fan perspective.

He writes a weekly newsletter that's emailed each Friday. To sign up for the newsletter, click here. Following is the newsletter for Friday, Nov. 5, 2021.

Scott also writes a weekly column that appears on Gamecock Central during football season.

I didn’t watch much of Game Six of the 2021 World Series.

This was not because I didn’t care about it. It was because I cared too much.

The Atlanta Braves – my first sports love, ritual tormentors of my hopes and dreams for four decades now – were playing for a championship. They’d had an opportunity to win it all on Sunday night at the home stadium in Atlanta, and I had cycled through 75 different emotions on that wild night – ecstasy tinged with terror after the Braves opened up a first-inning 4-0 lead, gnawing dread as the Astros chipped away at that lead for the next two hours, revitalized hope as the Braves retook the lead, then bitter grief mixed with a dash of anger when the game finally slipped away.

It felt like it was all happening to me again.

I’d listened to a radio broadcast of the franchise’s loss in the 7th game of the 1991 World Series, alone in my car, too nervous to watch in my college dorm room. I’d been in attendance at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium in 1992 when the Toronto Blue Jays won Game Six of the World Series in front of me to claim a championship I’d felt certain would finally wind up in Atlanta. And I was sitting in the stands in Atlanta – again – when the Braves carried a 6-0 lead against the New York Yankees into the sixth inning of Game 4 of the 1996 World Series.

They lost that game. They lost that series. And ever since, I had covered up my wounded heart and battered soul with a layer of steel armor so thick that few sports teams have been able to penetrate it.

As a sports fan, I often expect the worst.

And as a South Carolina Gamecock fan and a lifelong follower of the Atlanta professional sports teams, the worst has often found me.

Through it all, I’ve carried my scars with a kind of odd pride, a survivor’s “seen it all” stoicism.

That’s how I tend to frame my sports fanhood: Survival.

As Denzel Washington says in “Training Day”, “You can shoot me, but you can’t kill me.” (Note: Minutes after saying this, he is killed).

Yes, I’ve survived the Gamecock football team losing to archrival Clemson on a Hail Mary prayer-assisted-by-an-illegal-pushoff in the waning seconds of the 2000 game, arguably the most difficult sports loss anyone anywhere has ever experienced. I’ve survived the Atlanta Falcons leading 28-3 near the end of the third quarter and failing to win the Super Bowl. I attended every home game of South Carolina’s 0-11 season in 1999 – apparently I lived through this.

I survived the Darrin Horn Era of Gamecock basketball, the Brad Scott and Sparky Woods Eras of Gamecock football and the entire decade of the 1980s as an Atlanta sports fan.

I know how to stay alive when my sports teams are dying.

What I don’t know how to do is enjoy the moment.

And occasionally, despite all the anguish and all the suffering, there have indeed been moments to enjoy.

Maybe it’s time I learned how to savor them.

Here’s a shameful secret I’ve never told you before.

I did not see South Carolina baseball win the 2010 College World Series.

I didn’t see Whit Merrifield’s walk-off hit in the 11th inning to clinch the Gamecocks’ first title in a major sport. No, I was lying on the couch in my apartment in Greenville with my eyes closed as the game entered its decisive phase.

Oh, I was listening.

The ESPN broadcast blared on a television beside me. I could hear the rise in play-by-play announcer Mike Patrick’s voice as Merrifield swung. But my head was turned towards the ceiling and my eyes were locked shut with such force it felt like they’d been welded together.

I had been too nervous to watch.

By the time the moment registered in my mind – by the time I realized Merrifield had driven home a run and driven the Gamecocks into history – I had missed it. When I finally jerked my head towards the TV, Ray Tanner and the boys were already piling on top of each other in celebration.

My team had won a championship, but I’d only been halfway present for it. So I found myself in the ridiculous situation of simultaneously experiencing euphoria and self-loathing. This was what I’d waited for my entire life as a South Carolina fan…and now it existed to me only in replays and YouTube clips.

That’s why it wasn’t surprising that I found myself staring at “Modern Family” reruns for a long stretch on Tuesday night as Game Six ground onward, even as my wife kept looking over at me in disbelief. “When do we get to watch the game,” she finally blurted. “Your bad vibes are killing my joy.”

Friends and family members were texting updates, so it ultimately became impossible for me to keep my emotions fully siloed. I knew the score was 7-0 in favor of the Braves, and I knew those electric flickers I felt pulsing in my chest meant that I’d begun to hope. And I don’t trust hope. Not ever.

Still, eventually I would have to watch and keep watching. Eventually I could no longer delay the inevitable.

It doesn’t happen all the time, and for me it doesn’t happen often. But every now and then, the team you love does not collapse.

It does not let you down in the end. It does not fade. It does not falter. It does not disappoint you, the way you expect it to.

Once in a great while, the team you love reminds you why your faith has never really left you – why your faith stays alive inside you despite every gut-punch, every letdown, every heartbreak.

Once in a great while, the ending is happy – and it is only happy.

The Atlanta Braves won the World Series on Tuesday night.

I sort of saw it happen.

And I suppose, even now, that is the best I can do.

Now would be a phenomenal time for you to watch the final out of the 2021 World Series. Atlanta Braves Win the 2021 World Series - Final Out & Celebrations!

I can never get enough of those clips of fans celebrating while watching their team clinch a championship. For once, one of those clips actually commemorates my team clinching a title. Here are Braves fans losing their minds outside Truist Park on Tuesday night. Atlanta fans celebrate Braves' World Series win

You know what? Let’s run this one back just for old time’s sake. 92 NLCS, Gm 7 PIT@ATL: Bream beats Bonds' throw

And this one, too (picture me with my eyes closed). South Carolina wins 2010 CWS on Whit Merrifield walk-off hit

On Wednesday morning I drove into the city of Atlanta from my home in the suburbs. I was listening to sports radio for the first time in months, and the announcers were chatting jubilantly and the good vibes were flowing, when I saw it in the distance.

The husky shadow of the Peachtree Hotel and the city skyline.

That same skyline had electrified me 40 years earlier when I went to my first Atlanta Braves game with my parents in the summer of 1982. It represented something bigger than me, something weirdly powerful – an energy and a life force I didn’t quite understand, one that almost scared me, that definitely pulled me towards it.

Here I was, four decades later, driving towards it again, the city still in front of me. Here I was, now much older than my parents had been when they first brought me here. The team I loved as a boy had won a championship. I loved them still. I thought of my mother and father.

All the years piling on top of each other, all of those moments, everything I had shared with my family – all because of this baseball team.

How can we ever explain what these things mean to us?

Tell me your thoughts by writing me at scottdavis@gamecockcentral.com.

To sign up for Scott's weekly newsletter, click here.

Gamecock Central is introducing a free text alert service later this year.

Text USC to 877-GO-COCKS (877-46-26257) to sign up.

By texting this number, you agree to receive promotional messages sent via an autodialer, and this agreement isn’t a condition of any purchase. I also agree to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. You'll receive approx. four messages/month. Message & Data rates may apply. To unsubscribe, text STOP to 8774626257.