I think I’m guilty of cynicism driven by high expectations.

I woke up on the war path this morning. Pretty much pissed off before I ever rolled out of bed. Then as soon as I was on my feet, I walked into the living room, fired up the internet and found a target for my foul mood. The day kind of digressed from there, but I limited my contact with other human beings for the middle part of the day and minimized the damage.

There are probably several explanations for the fact that I wasn’t a very pleasant person today. I think chemistry likely has some logical answers and religion too (i.e., the fall). I’m not going to blame Monday because that’s weak and I usually dig Mondays. They’re productive.

Anyway, I’m blaming sports.

I’m blaming sports because as of Sunday morning I set the bar in the stratosphere for my afternoon and evening of sports watching. I expected to watch the U.S. Open for about 6 hours and during that time watch the Texas Rangers play the Toronto Blue Jays, then leave the house for the pub to watch the NBA Finals Game 5. That was the outline of the plan. The sub-points in the outline included things like the Rangers winning and thereby ending a five-game losing streak, the U.S. Open being decided by the final group on the final hole and possibly (hopefully) going to an 18-hole playoff on Monday and then the NBA Finals game coming down to the last shot. I’m not saying I needed all of these things to happen. I would have settled for two out of three.

Instead, the Rangers fell behind 2-0 in the top of the second inning, an early hint the recent trend wasn’t going to change on Sunday. Sure enough, they slid face first into their sixth-straight loss, falling 7-2.

That by itself would have put me in a foul mood on some days, but I took comfort in a Sunday afternoon of televised-golf watching. I kept talking myself into a fantastic finish despite the NBC commentators pessimism. You see, I want to be a glass-half-full person, so I wanted to think Phil was going to do something amazing on holes 17 or 18 to add to his legend.

He didn’t and a boring Englishman (redundant?) hugged his wife and held the U.S. Open trophy. Nothing against Justin Rose. He deserved it and he’s a worthy champion. But no playoff and very little drama equaled the second disappointment of the afternoon.

Speaking of boring, I suppose you know the Spurs won by 10 after leading by 19 with 3:30 left. In theory, this is a great NBA Finals, but it’s been almost unwatchable in practice. The big plot twist on Sunday night was that Manu Ginobili was all of the sudden un-terrible.

Can you see how my disposition turned from sunny to nasty? I can and that’s all that matters.

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Photo via Philly.com.