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20 October 20032 min read

Identity and Fandom

I have come to the conclusion that one of the reasons I don’t like watching team sports is that I don’t want to develop any sort of identification with a team. When you watch a team – the Chicago Cubs, for instanc…

“Hey, let’s see if Sammy can hit another homer!!!”

“Moises sure made a good catch!!!”

You wear Cubs clothing, a Cubs hat, wave around a Cubs flag, get a license plate holder that says “Go Cubs!” and, in general, start merging your life and the life of the Cubs. Unfortunately, this is – especially with the Cubs – a very poor idea. Because, and I say this gently, the Cubs suck. Even when they are good, they suck. What kind of a team can’t get into the World Series at least once in 50 years? At least not a team from a city with the 3rd highest population in the United States. You’d think that a city such as Chicago with its colorful history and diverse people could at least field a reasonable team. But no, they can’t, and the one year I decide to pay attention and enjoy the games and get caught up in Cubs Fever, they blow it all in game 6 and then go on to splat in the crushing game 7 defeat.

And now, because I have identified with this team, have decided to be a Cubs “fan”, I feel down and depressed and betrayed. And this makes no sense at all. It’s just a game, just a team, there’s always next year. But for another year, the Chicago Cubs are losers, and this time I lost with them.

It wouldn’t be so bad except that so much time is spent watching these games. From what I know, there are approximately 162 games in the regular season. If you spend – conservatively – 4 hours watching each game (as the hardcore, diehard fan you are), that’s almost 650 hours in a year. To put that into perspective, I have seen approximately 500 movies in my entire life and at 3 hours (very conservatively) each that would be 1,500 hours watching movies in MY ENTIRE LIFE. A hardcore fan will eclipse that in less than 3 years, and that’s just baseball. That doesn’t even take into account the sport crossovers into basketball, hockey, and football. I don’t know but that just stands out as a colossal waste of time. But that’s just me. If I had that many free hours, I’d probably spend all of it beating my friend Chris in Unreal Tournament 2003. At least then I’d actually get to PLAY in the game…