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Why fans can never turn their backs on the thrill of sport

Why fans can never turn their backs on the thrill of sport

We explore this topic a bit in the WhackBack section elsewhere on this site: just how fanatical fans can really be, especially on the line between great success and poor failure. In 35 years as a professional sports journalist (and 51 years as a sports fan), I’ve never been able to fully solve this question.

But I’m trying. I keep trying.

I’m sure we all laugh at Jerry Seinfeld’s old saying that exercise is all about getting laundry. However, if you’ve ever seen Jerry live and die at Citi Field with his favorite baseball team, you know that he doesn’t mean it in the slightest, even if he happens to have a penchant for orange and blue.

Mark Vientos of the Mets signs autographs for fans before the start of the game against the Pittsburgh Pirates at PNC Park on July 8, 2024. Getty Images

The fact is, we all have our origin story as sports fans. We all experience that moment that separates the before from the after – the “before” is the final blissful moment when you don’t care who wins or loses, who wins the MVP, who should be the manager, who should be the manager should captain, how quickly should the coach be fired…

And the “after,” when all of these things are the most meaningful things in the world to us. This usually happens at an early and innocent age, so none of these new pressures get in the way of something more important than dedicating more hours of free time to sports than to video games.

Mets fans cheer as Edwin Diaz ends the game with a win over the Phillies. Robert Sabo for NY Post

I’m sure you know a story like this: My father was sick from work and yet felt strong enough to meet me at the bus stop on the afternoon of October 10, 1973 so he could tell me that the Mets had just beaten the Reds for the National League pennant.

I had no idea what a “pennant” was in this context – I knew they were things that looked like flags that my father had hung on the walls with the hopeful intention of letting osmosis work its magic and draw me in to transform a sports fan. But why should I care if the Mets had won one?

It made my father very happy, so there was that. I came home and saw the ball players celebrating, so there was that. And suddenly, at that moment, I had a thousand questions for my father. Years later he joked that he was the first man I ever interrogated Wallace-style, when I was just six years old.

But whatever he said to me, I was hooked. I mean: locked up and locked up. From that moment until 18 seconds ago when I wrote this story, sports were a part of me. Daily. Hourly. I can also say that it’s my job and I have to feel that way, but people who know me know otherwise. If I were a sushi chef, a landscaper, or a lawyer, I would feel the same way about exercise. I would just do it.

When sport grabs you, it captivates you.

Underneath Miami CF striker Lionel Messi (10) cheers fans on as he walks onto the pitch to warm up before the game against New York City FC at Yankee Stadium. Brad Penner-Imagn Images

Ball games are a little more important than they should be. We joked with a few Giants fans and also a Yankees fan at the WhackBacks. But Mets fans know what we’re talking about, especially this weekend. Jets fans know you better believe that because they’re waiting for the marathon bridge from last Thursday’s Patriots game to Sunday’s Broncos game. Knicks fans? Rangers fans? It’s been a deadly wait since last spring, when the playoffs ended about a round earlier than either wanted or expected.

And they will come back.

Because that’s what we do. We’re coming back. We keep coming back. We complain and we snap, we write angry statements and let the radio hosts have their way. Those in our lives who don’t see sport the way we do sometimes shake their heads in confusion – see Hursey-Vaccaro, Leigh – and they tolerate us because they know it’s important to us, even if it’s no less important could be to them.

Caitlin Clark of the Indiana Fever signs fan gear before the game on August 24, 2024. NBAE via Getty Images
Athletics fans Jesse Feldman and Dakh Jones, right, give each other a high five during a baseball game between the Oakland Athletics and the Texas Rangers on Thursday, September 26, 2024. AP

We laugh at these attention-hungry people who sometimes “sell” their fandoms. If you know it, you know it. If you’re a sports fan, you may swear off a team on the last day of September and maybe even temporarily lose interest. But something will catch your attention. Something will bring you back.

Maybe it would be easier if we could actually turn off the tap for good. Some actually do. But most of us, even in the worst of times, live forever by the Michael Corleone Theorem.

Just when we think we’re outside…

They’re pulling me back in.

I am forever grateful that they do.

Vac’s Whacks

The train is idling in the MetLife parking lot. A Jets win on Sunday against the Broncos will make the pitch a little tricky over the next two weeks.

Dwight Gooden has gone back to college — to the University of Maryland to watch his son Dylan, a redshirt freshman linebacker for the Terrapins. “College football is great,” Doc said. “I love the atmosphere. I sign a few autographs and take a few photos. Most of the time I’m just a regular fan watching my son.”

Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers. AP

Joe Posnanski’s books are reliably as excellent as the Patriots used to be, although you already know that. So you already know you’ll like Why We Love Football: A History in 100 Moments.

The idea that baseball stadiums aren’t required to have a roof as part of the bidding process seems sillier every year.

Hit back at Vac

Marc Aaronin: Maybe the reason the Giants have lost so much over the last 13 years is because we spend too much time blaming the officials and not enough time blaming the actual team. Put on a healthy kicker. Catch a clutch ball in the fourth quarter. Keep going. When you’re a bad team, you don’t do these things, and since 2012, the Giants have been just that – a bad team.

Vac: Tell me if there is even a single syllable of it that can be argued about.

Kevin Bryant: The Giants had the wrong number 26 in the backfield. They need the one they let go.

Vac: It’s also hard to argue with that.

Saquon Barkley AP

@MikeCordaro1: The problem with the Yankees is that we’ve read this script too many times over the last 15 years. I was talking to a Yankee fan on the golf course today and he said, “Yeah, but,” when I reminded him that we could get the win that night.

@MikeVacc: Sigh. Wasn’t everyone happy here about 10 minutes ago?

Michael Lynch: Mike, hats off to Shohei Ohtani in the 50/50 club, but if someone had mentioned to Willie Mays that people matter, Shohei would have been the second member of that club. I’m just saying it.

Vac: And perhaps thirdly, if The Mick had been so inclined in his youth.