I don't want people to think that I'm a fan of Bill Simmons, but I do think his "13 levels of losing" can be applied to the Soriano situation.

http://proxy.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/020528

SPECIFICALLY, "Level II: The Stomach Punch," defined as "Any roller-coaster game that ends with A) an opponent making a pivotal (sometimes improbable) play, or B) one of your guys failing in the clutch ... usually ends with fans filing out after the game in stunned disbelief, if they can even move at all ... always haunting, sometimes scarring .."

I feel like this is especially the case because of the LaRoche/Hudson rumors, the senseless scouting debacle that Jeff noted, etc.

What got me started on this was noticing how my desire to shut out senseless, stupid sporting pain  was eerily similar to the wake of the Gonzaga-UCLA game on March 23rd, arguably the most painful loss of my sporting life. There's just no way to adequately deal with the needless stupidity and random chance involved...