Losing is a part of sports.

After all, for every winner, there has to be a loser.

Then again, there’s losing — and then there’s losing.

I’ve been on the losing side of losing more often than anyone would care to admit.

It’s just been so long since I’ve been there that the current bowling season is serving as a reminder to those days.

My team in our Thursday night league — perhaps aptly named the Crabby Flounder — is carrying a robust 10-46 record eight weeks into the campaign.

We may not be crabby, per se, but we’re definitely floundering.

Our team has yet to win more than one game in a night. We’ve been swept three times already. This past week, it looked like we were on our way to a win and we tied the other team. Our anchor bowler, Bill Shever, had to convert a baby split on the final shot of the night for us to do that.

Mr. Shever, by the way, carries the highest average in the league.

We lose anyway.

The other team had two bowlers show up Thursday.

We lost anyway.

Even if we sweep our next opponent, we’ll still be in last place.

But, hey, this is nothing new to me.

I once played for a Little League team that finished 2-18, lost games 56-0, 44-0 and 40-4. Our shortstop got tugged off the field by his ear — courtesy of his mother — because she couldn’t stand to see her son humiliated any longer.

Uhh, you pulled your 11-year-old kid by his ear in the middle of a game, in front of people ... oh well.

My mother got banned from attending any further Little League games after she incited a bench-clearing brawl by instructing me to “get him,” in reference to the kid who just hit me with a pitch for the third time in that game.

I played on an adult flag football team that lost a game 105-0 — and we didn’t even play the second half.

The officials said they couldn’t take it anymore.

I think the clincher came when an opposing player grabbed the flag from my waist and inadvertently pulled my shorts down with it.

I played on an adult softball team that had a second baseman who couldn’t run, a right fielder who couldn’t see, a third baseman who couldn’t catch and a first baseman who couldn’t understand why I, the pitcher, would throw the ball to him after fielding a grounder.

Yeah, we lost — almost all of the time ... by a lot of runs.

My pitching was less than stellar. I served up so may home runs that during warm-ups, a power hitter on one of the league’s best teams offered to give me 10 bucks if I’d take the mound that night.

No, I didn’t take the money. I have my pride.

His home runs that night were on me.

That was about 35 years ago.

And I’m still losing.

But, fellow bowlers, not to worry.

There’s always the second half.

John Enrietto is sports editor of the Butler Eagle