The Day I Became a Sports Fan

This entry is part of the Gain or Lose contest over at Sporting News where I used to post a lot. I've talked at length in previous blog entries about different things throughout my life that have influenced my sporting tastes, teams, and desires. This time however, the topic asked for the single day that "I became a sports fan." Enjoy.

The Day I Became a Sports Fan

For most sport fans, athletics have long been an integral part of their life. Whether it was active participation or enthusiastic observation, sports and life seem to go hand in hand. At least that’s the case for me.

Looking back at my life, it’s difficult to pin down an exact day when I became a sports fan. The first professional game that I can remember watching on TV was the 1990 World Series when it was the vaunted Oakland Athletics versus the small, scrappy underdog Cincinnati Reds. It was a tale of David vs. Goliath, and much like David, the small, undersized Reds (my team!) prevailed. It was an exciting time, but I was only 8 years old – I don’t think I truly grasped the difficulty and magnitude reaching (and then winning) the World Series. It was a momentous day in my sports “career” but it was the day that made me a sports fan.

Since then, there are a number of possible days that could have made me a true fan. Perhaps when I was the starting second baseman for my Little League team and we won the league championship I became a fan. Perhaps when I played on a soccer team and we won the end of the year tournament I became a fan. Perhaps watching a Major League Baseball game live in Philadelphia I became a fan. Those are all valid moments, but I think the true day I became a sports fan was on a much less “exciting” day, in fact, it was on a day that had a lot nervous tension…

When I was in eighth grade, I was on a traveling baseball team. However, in eighth grade I wasn’t the biggest kid out there, in fact, I’m fairly certain I was actually the smallest kid out there. I had been moved from my Little League position of second base to the outfield, mostly because there was a much better hitter that could only play infield on our team. In short, I was (barely) a member of the team, clearly ranking at the bottom of the lineup – had we had one more good player, there’s little doubt I would have been relegated to the bench.

On the day in question, my traveling team was scheduled to play a game in against the team farthest away in the division. At the time, I had some other friends on a different team in the same league that had faced the team we were to play the prior week…and they got pounded. According to them, this mysterious team had a pitcher who threw harder than they had ever seen (remember, this was before Facebook and YouTube)! They didn’t get a single hit, though they did walk a couple of times and one of my buddies got a nasty black and blue from being hit by a pitch. In short, there was little hope for my team…

As far as the game, I don’t recall a lot about it. I know we lost, pretty badly if memory serves – and yes, that kid did pitch, and yes, he did throw harder than anyone I had ever seen. In fact, he threw so hard that we only got one hit against him – and that solitary hit came from the shortest, skinniest kid on the team: me.

I wish I could say I cracked a homerun or even a double off the wall, but I can’t. All I did was swing and hit the ball through the third base and shortstop hole (which would mean I was a bit late on the swing since I’m left-handed) for a single. It wasn’t remarkable to anyone watching, but it was special to me. It proved to me, first hand, that anything can happen if you keep a positive attitude. It proved that size, strength, or even a coach’s opinion doesn’t always matter. It also was another example in the long lasting sports bank of amazing stories (Miracle on Ice, the Dream Team, Red Sox comeback from 3 games down, etc.). It was the very essence of what I love about sports (underdogs, surprises, and heart), and it was all wrapped up in one, slightly late swing from the short, skinny kid. That was the day that I became a sports fan because that’s the day sports became something more than just a game to me.