Sometimes, sports make me cry.
(Go watch a Lifetime movie and a Massengill commercial with a pint of Ben and Jerry's, you twinkle-toes-skirt-wearing-metrosexual-romantic-comedy-watching-she-male.)
C'mon, that's not fair. Sports make me angry, too. Throwing things across the room and scaring the pets kind of angry. Pounding the couch with my fists like I was a Klitschko on a speed bag kind of angry. Swearing with the verbal dexterity and volume of a 24-hour Chris Rock concert marathon kind of angry.
I've gotten plenty pissed watching sports during the last 30 years (emotionally and intoxicationally), but the last time a game made me sob like a sullen toddler was back in 1994, when the New Jersey Devils lost Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals in overtime to the hated New York Rangers. It was a combination of the Devils having already blown Game 6 at home, the Devils having teased me with a game-tying goal late in the third period of Game 7, and the fact that I knew my suburban New Jersey high school would be crawling with Rangers fans eager to taunt, trash, and torment me in my darkest hour the next time I walked the halls.
But the slings and arrows I faced from "enemies" growing up — Yankees fans, Giants fans, Rangers fans, and Knicks fans, primarily — only intensified my fanaticism for the Mets, Jets, Devils, and Nets. When you're a kid, and car payments and vacation requests and tax returns are just things your parents grumble under their breath about, sports take on epic qualities. Every game, be it a hockey night in April or a baseball game in June, takes on a life-or-death importance. Gradually, at least in my case, the intensity of those emotions subsides; you're still agitated after a loss the next day, but those real rushes of frustration and fury are reserved for a defeat against a hated rival or the definitive fate-sealing loss of the season, whenever that arrives.
The point is that people who matured emotionally while sports were a vital part of their lives — either rooting for or playing on a team — generally continue to be emotionally invested in them when they're older.
Even as priorities change into adulthood, the psychological (as well as monetary) commitment to the teams we choose to follow remains ingrained and, in many cases, seemingly genetic.
With that in mind, I was eager to read Washington Post Magazine deputy editor Sydney Trent's article titled "The Experiment," published last weekend. In it, she chronicles her attempted transition from being a middle-aged woman who "knows nothing about baseball and could not care less" to becoming a Washington Nationals fan. What immediately struck me was that Trent's upbringing was in such stark contrast to mine: I grew up in a Central Jersey house where there were as many pieces of sports memorabilia on the walls as there were family photos, while Trent was from the South and a home where "sports was not on the conversational table."
The next 330,000 words (or so it felt) were dedicated to what amounted to a superficial stunt. She was taught the basics of baseball through her husband, attending games, and reading the morning paper's box scores. She found an entry point to sports through the most cliché of means for a female fan: admiration of the players' looks or personas or the poetry in their motions. She found "something endearing about" pitcher Livan Hernandez's "pudgy waistline." Rent-a-star Alfonso Soriano "has the charisma that makes Denzel Washington stand out on the big screen," and she reveled in his "wide stance at the plate" and the way he "juts out his slender hips as he restlessly twirls the bat."
Yikes ... does someone need some alone-time?
But at no point did you get the sense that Trent was all-in. I never recalled her heading to the local sporting goods store, loading up on gear, and then flaunting her fanaticism like it was a badge of honor. (I live in D.C.; it's not like there aren't 25 variations of Nationals hats and car magnets for sale in every retail outlet.) I never read about her spending hours on Internet message boards arguing with complete strangers about where Nick Johnson should hit in the batting order. Her emotional investment in the team seemed focused on the players instead of on the uniform. At the end of the piece, she admits that she doesn't know if she'll ever "collapse in despair if the Nationals lose a close game."
As pathetic as it might be in the grand scheme of life, isn't that what a true sports fan does? At least once in a while?
Like any rookie, I'm not going to judge Trent based on a single season. But her article made me wonder: can someone in his or her 30s or 40s become a fan with the kind of emotional devotion that someone who's been on the bandwagon "all their life" has developed?
Throughout the years, friends recruit friends and husbands recruit wives (and vice versa) into their respective sports obsessions. But in those situations, there's always going to be an imbalance: one's dedication had been previously established, and the other's devotion partially feeds off of that. As with any fan culture — sports, bands, movies, video games — those ahead of the curve are always going to feel more plugged-in than the newbies, and the newbies are always going to feel a twinge of inferiority as soon as the conversation turns to nostalgia that predates their allegiance.
But beyond that, I truly believe that growing up with sports instills an inherent loyalty and kinship between an individual and his or her team of choice. The tribulations of losing and the emotional highs of winning are part of one's emotional maturation, just like your first kiss or passing your driver's test or spelling ammeba ... $#@%#$ ... "a-m-e-e-b-a" ... grrrrr ... "a-m-o-e-b-a" incorrectly to lose the school spelling bee. (Not that it ever happened to this writter ... $#@%#$ ... "w-r-i-t-e-r.")
Honestly, Sydney Trent, or anyone else who jumps on the bandwagon later in life, should consider themselves lucky. Because they're not going to cry after losing a Game 7. They're not going to get on their hands and knees searching for the AAA batteries that flew out of the remote when it was hurled across the room in frustration. Their children aren't going to learn their first curse words because daddy's quarterback threw an interception against the Dolphins. They're going to save an incredible amount of money on playoff tickets, they're going to gain an incredible amount of sleep that would otherwise be wasted on overtime losses, and they're going to conserve an incredible amount of hair that would otherwise be pulled out when their closer walks the bases loaded on a muggy August evening.
They'll be fans.
The rest of us, for better or for worse, will continue to be fanatics.
Greg Wyshynski is the Features Editor for SportsFan Magazine in Washington, DC, and the Senior Sports Editor for The Connection Newspapers of Northern Virginia. His book is "Glow Pucks and 10-Cent Beer: The 101 Worst Ideas in Sports History." His columns appear every Saturday on Sports Central. You can e-mail Greg at [email protected].
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