Last Friday night, at 4:42am, I got an email from my friend Steve from graduate school, who is a huge --- in the "didn't sleep or shower or go to class or do any work during the 2003 NLCS" meaning of the word --- Cubs fan. The Cubs had just lost game 2 of the NLDS to fall behind 2-0 in the series. Clearly, Steve had not gone to bed yet and was looking for someone to listen to him vent. The email rambled on for about 10 or 12 paragraphs. Here's how it ended:
I picked up my favorite sports teams by some combination of osmosis and practicality. My dad was obsessed with (in order) the Giants, Yankees, Knicks, and Rangers and --- as he often pointed out --- there were only 2 days during the whole year that you could be sure none of those teams were playing*, so our TV was kind of monopolized in a way that I wasn't going to get to see a lot of the other teams that were available to watch, or a lot of other TV in general. Plus I'm pretty sure my dad would have refused to feed me if I declared that I liked the Red Sox.
Now, I'm certainly happy that this all happened. Watching sports with my dad was definitely a prime father-son activity in our house that i really enjoyed, and I'm still a big baseball and football fan to this day. And while I didn't inherit his all-out obsession with all the old New York sports teams, I did get it with the Giants. And that has created a love-hate sports relationship for me. I have said many times that I really just wish I didn't care about the New York Giants. That I could just go do something else on Sunday afternoon and be perfectly content doing it. That it wouldn't affect my mood during the week. That I wouldn't feel compelled to scream at the television. But I can't. I just have to watch.
But the real kicker is that we don't live in the home television market of the teams Sarah and I like. That means that it's going to take a Herculean effort to get the kids to like the proper teams. And you bet we're going to make that effort. Because whatever the merits are of passing on a sports obsession to your kids are, I can't even begin to imagine the child developing their own obsession for, say, the Washington Redskins.** And if we do nothing, that's exactly what is more than likely to happen. Wouldn't that be swell. As it is, I think we really have to hope that the 'Skins stink for the next five to seven years, because the saturation of Redskins media coverage, clothing, and all the rest is going to be very difficult to overcome. If we didn't try to fight that kind of influence, there'd be no chance whatsoever.***
But I do wonder about the things Steve brings up in his email. Is it really fair to hand this off to someone? Well, I'm surely not going to invest any effort in not handing it off. What am I going to do, not watch the Giants? We've already ruled that out. So it seems as though we're boxed in: we can either make an effort to get the child into the sports teams we like, or we can wake up one day with a kid who likes the Redskins or, god forbid, the Dallas Cowboys.
Maybe we'll just make it clear what types of fans get eating privileges in our house.
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* That would be the day before and the day after the baseball all-star game.
**One exception is that I'm toying with the idea of making the baby a 'Nats fan. I'm trying to coax myself into picking them up as my National League team, and I think it might be a good way for the child to have some sort of D.C. allegiance.
*** If anyone would like to pre-order either of these items, it will save us having to register for them:
I can't stand this. Jennifer and I made an agreement when we decided to have kids. She could decide what denomination they would be baptized into. I got to decide what sports teams would be acceptable objects of affection in the house (for example, she was never to be permitted to buy clothes with another team's logo, etc.). She was ok with that and I have been raising Sofia as a Cubs fan - she even sings a little bit of that "Go Cubs Go" song by Steve Goodman. Now I'm thinking it would be better to just erase sports from our household. This brings me nothing but pain; why should I wish such a thing on my children?Whoa.
I picked up my favorite sports teams by some combination of osmosis and practicality. My dad was obsessed with (in order) the Giants, Yankees, Knicks, and Rangers and --- as he often pointed out --- there were only 2 days during the whole year that you could be sure none of those teams were playing*, so our TV was kind of monopolized in a way that I wasn't going to get to see a lot of the other teams that were available to watch, or a lot of other TV in general. Plus I'm pretty sure my dad would have refused to feed me if I declared that I liked the Red Sox.
Now, I'm certainly happy that this all happened. Watching sports with my dad was definitely a prime father-son activity in our house that i really enjoyed, and I'm still a big baseball and football fan to this day. And while I didn't inherit his all-out obsession with all the old New York sports teams, I did get it with the Giants. And that has created a love-hate sports relationship for me. I have said many times that I really just wish I didn't care about the New York Giants. That I could just go do something else on Sunday afternoon and be perfectly content doing it. That it wouldn't affect my mood during the week. That I wouldn't feel compelled to scream at the television. But I can't. I just have to watch.
But the real kicker is that we don't live in the home television market of the teams Sarah and I like. That means that it's going to take a Herculean effort to get the kids to like the proper teams. And you bet we're going to make that effort. Because whatever the merits are of passing on a sports obsession to your kids are, I can't even begin to imagine the child developing their own obsession for, say, the Washington Redskins.** And if we do nothing, that's exactly what is more than likely to happen. Wouldn't that be swell. As it is, I think we really have to hope that the 'Skins stink for the next five to seven years, because the saturation of Redskins media coverage, clothing, and all the rest is going to be very difficult to overcome. If we didn't try to fight that kind of influence, there'd be no chance whatsoever.***
But I do wonder about the things Steve brings up in his email. Is it really fair to hand this off to someone? Well, I'm surely not going to invest any effort in not handing it off. What am I going to do, not watch the Giants? We've already ruled that out. So it seems as though we're boxed in: we can either make an effort to get the child into the sports teams we like, or we can wake up one day with a kid who likes the Redskins or, god forbid, the Dallas Cowboys.
Maybe we'll just make it clear what types of fans get eating privileges in our house.
-----------
* That would be the day before and the day after the baseball all-star game.
**One exception is that I'm toying with the idea of making the baby a 'Nats fan. I'm trying to coax myself into picking them up as my National League team, and I think it might be a good way for the child to have some sort of D.C. allegiance.
*** If anyone would like to pre-order either of these items, it will save us having to register for them:
Good to see your post mentioning "Go, Cubs, Go" by Steve Goodman. He often doesn't get his due. You might be interested in an eight-year project of mine that has come to fruition -- an 800-page biography of Goodman published in May, "Steve Goodman: Facing the Music." The book delves deeply into the origin of "Go, Cubs, Go" and "A Dying Cub Fan's Last Request." Please check my Internet site below for more info on the book. Just trying to spread the word. Feel free to do the same!
ReplyDeleteClay Eals
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