“Remember, Red. Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.” 

Honestly, no day-after talk-radio therapy session — the kind that Mike and the Mad Dog used to specialize in, the days when they would serve as civic psychologists for entire fan bases mourning difficult losses — has ever done better to describe what we go through as sports fans than Andy Dufresne’s letter to his pal Red at the end of “The Shawshank Redemption.” 

That’s it, isn’t it? That’s why we keep coming back. That’s why we keep investing pieces of our heart into these games, these teams, these players, even as we wonder if that isn’t a worse investment than horses and buggies, right? It’s all about hope. Always. Hope. 

Look at this week in New York City.