November 2, 2024

I guess I’m not a very good sports fan.

I was not one of the two million fans screaming and cheering on the streets of LA as the Dodger World Series victory parade drove through town yesterday. I was not part of the packed Dodger Stadium that gave a thundering welcome to the Dodgers at the end of the parade. I was not one of the people arrested during the course of the celebration, nor did I start any fires or commit any crimes. But I did at least read about all of it after it happened. That counts for something, right?

Don’t get me wrong. I love sports. When I was a kid, I would wait for my dad to finish with the sports section of the newspaper, then read it from back to front. I would watch anything sports-related on TV – baseball, golf, football, World’s Strongest Man, Superstars, Wide World of Sports, boxing  . . . I think you get the drift. 

If you lived in Arkansas, you were automatically a Razorbacks fan. Football was and is king, but basketball was pretty good back in the late 1970s, too. I’ve been gone from Arkansas for 44 years, and I’m still a Razorback fan. But here’s the thing. Am I really a fan?

The word fan stems from the term fanatic. And the definition of fanatic that I’m going with is Oxford’s, “a person filled with excessive and single-minded zeal.” Back in my childhood days, I rooted for the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team, and against the Dallas Cowboys. And my favorite pro football team, for whatever reason, was the Miami Dolphins. I had Miami Dolphins pajamas, a Dolphins bedspread and trash can, and a poster of quarterback Bob Griese on my wall. That was kind of fanatical.

I remember making a bet with my 5th grade friend RoseAnn (Hi RoseAnn! Thanks for being a blog reader!) on Super Bowl VI, as I was sure my favorite football team, the Miami Dolphins, would trounce the Cowboys. Nope. 24-3 Cowboys. Mike lost $5; RoseAnn won $5. To top it off, she and I were finalists in the spelling bee, and she beat me by correctly spelling the word chrysanthemum. I’ve gotten over the spelling bee, but the Super Bowl loss still hurts. She has reminded me of both losses on several occasions. It’s been 52 years, RoseAnn. Enough already!

But my fanaticism has faded away over the years. When I moved to Northern California, I became a Stanford fan, a 49ers fan, and a San Francisco (baseball) Giants fan. I went to a few games, and the Joe Montana years were absolutely wonderful.

Then I moved to Malibu, and I started taking my son Ryan to Dodger games. Ryan’s grandfather had access to amazing tickets above home plate, and we got to attend at least five games a year. We loved it. Then, three years in, the Dodgers played the Giants. I thought it only made sense to put on my Giants cap. Ryan goes, “Dad? Um. What the heck are you doing with that cap? Don’t we hate the Giants?” 

That’s when I realized I’m not a very good fan. At that time, I still liked the Cardinals, I loved the Giants, and I was learning to love the Dodgers. But most of all, I was a fan of my son, and I did not want this rift between us. So I bought a Dodgers cap and became a Dodgers fan. (And a Giants fan. And a Cardinals fan.)

I reserve my bitter disdain for two teams – the Dallas Cowboys (I can’t really explain it, but it’s real), and the low-down-cheating-World-Series-stealing Houston Astros. If this were not a family publication, there would have been an f-bomb in there. But that’s it. Just those two teams. As a Stanford alum, I’m supposed to hate UC Berkeley. But I don’t. I went to graduate school there for a year, and I think Berkeley is an outstanding university. It makes no sense that Stanford and Cal are both in the ACC, and I will root for both of them when they play Duke and North Carolina. 

If you take away the excessive and single-minded zeal part, are you really a fan?

Back to the Dodgers – It was amazing to see them win the World Series this week. Jill and I watched every game on TV. Tape-delayed of course. My friend and across-the-street neighbor Jack (also a blog reader) has lived in our neighborhood for almost 60 years. When I asked him about watching the World Series, he said he was looking forward to it, then casually added that he’s been a Yankees fan since 1941, and that will never change. Now there’s a fan. There was not an ounce of compromise in his voice. I bet he enjoyed the Yankees winning that one game, and I bet those 3 errors in the 5th inning will haunt all Yankee fans for a while. Of course, Jack has seen the Yankees win 19 World Series during his lifetime, so he probably doesn’t feel too bad.

I am comfortable in my current state of loving sports but embracing a “casual fan” attitude that keeps my mood from being negatively impacted by my teams’ successes and failures. I never watch live sports on TV. Who has three hours? If I record it ahead of time, I can zoom through it in an hour, and if it’s not close, I can just stop watching. The only commercials I ever see are during the Super Bowl, and they are outstanding!

There are, of course, people who call themselves fans, who take it too far. The two Yankee fans who assaulted Mookie Betts after he had caught a foul ball have been unapologetic afterwards. The fans who get into fights with fans of another team, just because they are wearing the wrong jersey. That kind of negativity and hate has no place anywhere. They are not fans – they are ugly people looking for a fight. An attorney friend of mine says he thinks Mookie Betts owes it to baseball to file assault charges. That kind of behavior cannot be part of baseball games. By the way, the Yankees gave those two a whopping one-game suspension. I hope those miscreants are not treated as heroes next year.

So to all of the real sports fans out there, to all of you diehards who support your team no matter what, and to all of you who keep that fan energy positive, I apologize for falling short in my fanaticism. And I will say that watching the games is better because of true fans who show up, who spend way more money than they should on season tickets, and who live and die by their team. All of you make the games more interesting to us lesser sports fans.

In summary, Go Hogs! Go Cardinal! Go Bruins! Go Orediggers! Go Cardinals! Go Giants! Go 49ers! Go Rams! Go Lakers! Go Warriors! And . . .  Go Dodgers! And – Beat the Cowboys and I hope those low-down cheating *#^@* Astros don’t win it all for a long time.

Post #120 on www.drmdmatthews.com

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NOTES

I was not a professional wrestling fan as a kid, nor am I now. My brother Bill has had a lifelong love affair with the WWF/WWE, but not me. Though the Ric Flair 30 for 30 episode by ESPN was absolutely fantastic, and I admit that I occasionally give a Ric Flair yell when things deserve celebration.

• Post publication update – My brother Bill let me know that he was not a WWF/WWE fan growing up, though he is now. He and his crazy friends were fans of the old Mid South Wrestling with characters such as General Scandar Ackbar, The Junkyard Dog, and Kamala the Ugandan Giant! That’s even better, Bill!

If you don’t know how the Astros cheated their way into winning the 2017 world series, you can read it in Wikipedia here.

The funniest jokes are the ones you have to explain. So, I made a hilarious reference above to the San Francisco (Baseball) Giants. Let me explain. Back in the 1st half of the 20th century, New York had the New York Giants football team, and the New York Giants baseball team. So when you referred to the Giants, you had to clarify whether they were the baseball Giants or the football Giants. The baseball Giants moved to San Francisco in 1958 (the same year the Brooklyn Dodgers moved to LA – tough year for NY). Fast forward to 60+ years later, and some people still refer to the NY Giants football team as the New York (football) Giants. It’s a humorous nod to history. So when I said, the San Francisco (baseball) Giants, it was a takeoff on that humor, which to me, makes it even more hilarious.

I also think that explaining that the funniest jokes are the ones you have to explain is funny in itself. Let me explain. . . . OK. I’ll stop. But I do want to explain it. Because it would be even more hilarious.

Also, before the New York team was the Giants, they were the New York Gothams for three years. Batman would have liked that.