The Bambino's Curse has a great post about the "we" and the "us" of baseball fan-dom. A commenter had asked: "We? Our? I don't understand the use of personal pronouns on any of these posts. Are any of you members of the Red Sox or the Yankees?"
He answers this question thoroughly and perfectly. Fans do feel that they "own" their respective teams. For all kinds of different reasons.
For me, being a Red Sox fan is part of the culture I grew up in - the same thing as being Irish, being Catholic, and coming from a Boston family. I still can remember my first jaunts to Fenway Park, as a kid, with my uncles, my cousins. My memory of 1976 and Carlton Fisk's home run are still vividly emblazoned in my mind. I jump up and down and cheer when they win. I sink into sadness when they lose.
Like ALL fans who really love the game.
Yankee fans don't have a monopoly on loving their team.
But the post I point to says it perfectly:
So when I consider the Boston Red Sox, I'm not only conjuring up objective facts of the team, the wins and losses, the errors, the fantastic plays, the pine tar on Trot Nixon's batting helmet … I'm also twitching upon the thread of who I am, the trips to Fenway with my dad, the muddy corduroy pants of 6th grade recess when my friend Andy Audet reenacted Doyle's slide in Game 6 of the '75 World Series… Seeing the "B" logo on a cap invokes the sound of my friend John's soft, Maine accent reenacting a game over the phone … seeing the green expanse of Fenway on TV brings me back to a lazy summer Saturday afternoon when my dad brought home our first color set and how we couldn't wait to watch the Sox in color, with Curt Gowdy's voice like Gabriel carrying the word of God …These are some of the things that are the I and the We and the Us and the Ours of the Boston Red Sox.
"twitching on the thread of who I am". Very nice.
Good work. Especially the bit about the "muddy corduroy pants at 6th grade recess". I think I had the same pants.
Posted by sheilaWhat is it about baseball that conjures up all those childhood memories?
Posted by: Val Prieto at February 19, 2004 1:52 PMoh those halycon days when levis cords were 'cool.'
It's funny the things that become part of one's indentity - and how deeply we absorb them. Even if I turned away from baseball in the same way my Catholicism has lapsed, switching allegiance would be unthinkable. I'll always be a Red Sox fan in the same way I'll always be Irish Catholic.
Posted by: Dan at February 19, 2004 1:52 PMVal -
I don't think it's a universal thing - but definitely in my family, going to Red Sox games was a part of our lives. Some of my earliest memories are Fenway Park memories.
Maybe it would be different for people who grew up in states without a baseball team ... or maybe in places like Texas, the memories would be football memories ...
But for my family, it's all about baseball.
Posted by: red at February 19, 2004 1:56 PMBaseball can conjure up the best childhood memories.
I went to a Game 4 of the NLCS in 1986 with my father. My move vivid memories are of Lenny Dykstra nearly taking my head off with a foul ball and a sign with a picture of toilet paper saying "The Mets will use Scott (Mike, the Astros pitcher) to wipe their Ass-tros".
The Mets lost the game, but we know what happened next.
About "we"s and "us"s. I hate when people nitpick the use of those pronouns. I know I'm not part of the team, its shorthand and a little bit of a sense of community.
Posted by: Bill McCabe at February 19, 2004 2:02 PMMy server is crashing or something. I am having a hell of a time right now ...
Sorry about that folks...
Posted by: red at February 19, 2004 2:10 PMOh, and Dan:
"halcyon days when levi cords were in".
Very very comical. And very true.
Posted by: red at February 19, 2004 2:12 PMVoop voop voop. I used to wear Levi's cords on stage, back in the halcyon days of '85. That was about 25 pounds ago, and the effect today wouldn't be quite the same....
My first baseball memory was going to a Bat Day doubleheader (damme, I miss doubleheaders) at Cleveland Municipal Stadium in 1969, Indians hosting the Orioles (Robinson, Belanger, Powell, Blair, et al) with my grandpa. They used to give away honest-to-God Little-League sized Louisville Sluggers back then, and bleacher seats were like 50 cents (general admission about 2 bucks).
My fondest baseball memory was from 1974. My dad took us to see the Indians play the White Sox. Tribe got smoked 15-4, but after the game we were on the sidewalk outside the stadium and Dad pointed out a man walking toward us.
"That's Leroy Kelly," he said.
Kelly was winding down his career with the Browns; his brother Harold "Pat" Kelly played for the Sox. We kids got his autograph; he was gracious about it.
Posted by: Ken Hall at February 19, 2004 4:27 PMThe "we won" thing always reminds me of a bit from Jerry Seinfeld's stand-up act. "Fans always go, 'We won! We won!' No...THEY won. YOU watched."
Posted by: Mark at February 19, 2004 8:57 PMSheila,
Thanks for the link to Bambino's and for sharing your own memories.
Posted by: Edw. at February 20, 2004 8:31 AMSheila,
Being in Miami, I never had a team till the nineties. But my grandfather was a huge baseball fan and he would take me to very single Orioles game in the spring. Memories of that, of that old stadium (its gone now), the smell of the field, the sound over the loudspeakers. I even remember the cokes had these fuzzy things swirling around in them. And the Big Red Machine. Damn, those really were the days.
Posted by: Val Prieto at February 20, 2004 9:14 AM