When did you realize that it wasn't YOUR Baseball team?

coinmanic

In my mid 30's it finally hit me. The child in me wanted to believe forever that the Detroit Tigers were my team. I grew up with them each summer. Ernie Harwell told me about each strike and each ball and every Home Run that was "Looooong Gooooone". He would jokingly tell me the hometown of each guy in the stands that caught a foul ball. It took an older, wiser brother to inform me that it was a career long prank. Harwell never did or could know that the fellow was from Algonac.

Al Kaline would throw out a guy at home exclusively for me and every other 11 year old that "owned" the team. When Gates Brown smashed one into the seats it was for us kids as well.

I finally awoke from my lifelong dream in the early 90's when the Tigers fired Ernie. It was the coldest splash of water that anyone could endure. I had no control over my team. It was all in the hands of the fatcat pizza magnate from Ann Arbor. I looked around over the next dozen years and saw the Baseball strike, the steroid infused home run hitters. The megabillion Dollar contracts and the Mercenary team jumping that flushed all loyalty out the window.

When did the reality of Baseball hit home with you?

Or hasn't it yet?

cwazzy

Baseball is what it is. It's really not that different from any other sport. But the Cardinals will always be "my" team. The players may change, the front office will make decisions that I don't agree with, and they will let me down at times (okay, most of the time LOL), but that will never change the feelings that I have for "my" team.

WinPitcher

1981 during the strike.


Steve

coinmanic

<< <i>Baseball is what it is. It's really not that different from any other sport. But the Cardinals will always be "my" team. The players may change, the front office will make decisions that I don't agree with, and they will let me down at times (okay, most of the time LOL), but that will never change the feelings that I have for "my" team. >>



Good answer. All the professional sports are pretty much the same. Guess I kept the rose colored glasses on too long.

digicat

I enjoy baseball. I am happy being a fan of my team. I've rooted for the Giants for 20 years. Every year, they become more and more MY team. The strike, PEDs, contracts, freeagency, they don't really impact my enjoyment of MY team.

Baseball is a hobby for me, and hobbies are to be enjoyed.

Baseball is not my religion, marrage, friends, family, country, political party, or my job.

coinmanic

<< <i>I enjoy baseball. I am happy being a fan of my team. I've rooted for the Giants for 20 years. Every year, they become more and more MY team. The strike, PEDs, contracts, freeagency, they don't really impact my enjoyment of MY team.

Baseball is a hobby for me, and hobbies are to be enjoyed.

Baseball is not my religion, marrage, friends, family, country, political party, or my job. >>



I applaud you for supporting a team that was tainted with the Steroid Poster Child.

digicat

<< <i>I applaud you for supporting a team that was tainted with the Steroid Poster Child. >>



He may have been the Steroid Poster Child, but man, those huge "splash hit" HR's put in the water were exciting to watch.

TheVon

<< <i>I enjoy baseball. I am happy being a fan of my team. I've rooted for the Giants for 20 years. Every year, they become more and more MY team. The strike, PEDs, contracts, freeagency, they don't really impact my enjoyment of MY team.

Baseball is a hobby for me, and hobbies are to be enjoyed.

Baseball is not my religion, marriage, friends, family, country, political party, or my job. >>



Well said. I'd say the same thing except I'd swap out the Giants for the Red Sox.

coinmanic

Good answer Digicat. I am a football fan, but favor no particular team. NFL is no stranger to PED's.

perkdog

I still get emotional after tough losses by the Sox and Patriots, until the day comes when I couldnt care less about them winning or losing they will be "MY TEAMS"

jimq112

My baseball team had Clemente. As far back as I could remember, he was there. When he wasn't there it just wasn't as much fun. I still liked them, but I wasn't up every night trying to hear the game with my transistor radio and getting frustrated when the reception went out or the battery died.

I used to listen to KDKA from Pittsburgh, and in Erie 100+ miles away it wasn't always clear. On the nites it was clear, you could hear Bob Prince and the Possum.

I would still watch or listen when I could, and read the paper every morning to see what happened the nite before. I went to games as often as I could, but win or lose it just wasn't the same without that guy cracking his neck at the plate, or throwing the ball underhanded back to the infield, or running with that goofy style.

I miss that a lot.

TheVon

That story makes me wonder . . .

Doesn't it seem like the things we really have to work at are the things we end up cherishing the most? These days it is so easy to follow a team that I think a lot of us take our sports for granted. I live 3,000 miles away from where the Red Sox play and yet through the miracle of cable TV and the internet I can watch the NESN broadcast of each game and when I'm stuck at work I can follow all the action on the internet and I don't have to wait for the paper to show up in the morning to get the box scores. It's great in a way, but it's also kind of routine now too.

As a kid, the only access to stats I had was the Sunday paper's complete listing of the leaders and today I have complete access all the time. And yet, on any given Sunday in 1989 I could have told you who was leading each league in triples without skipping a beat and today I'd have to stop and log into ESPN first.

coinmanic

Well put, TheVon. Back in the early 70's my best friend went away to camp for the summer. Each week I mailed him the standings from the paper. Now he could get scores on his cellphone.

larryallen73

When MY Dodger's let Garvey and Cey leave the team.

TheVon

<< <i>Well put, TheVon. Back in the early 70's my best friend went away to camp for the summer. Each week I mailed him the standings from the paper. Now he could get scores on his cellphone. >>



Now that is what a best friend is for!

I remember going to summer camp for two weeks when I was a kid and I was completely cut off from baseball. I was overjoyed when I got home and read in the paper that the Red Sox had been on a long win streak while I was away. I think that was 1986 . . . most of that year was great.

MCMLVTopps

Far, far too many good memories of the Red Sox teams over many years to ever think they weren't "my team". Can't describe how exciting it was to hear Curt Gowdy talk about Ted Williams coming to the plate and better yet, hitting a home run. Many a summer day I hitch-hiked with my best friend to his family's camp in southern NH, most of the time listening to a Red Sox game on one of those small transistor radios. You just don't forget seeing players like Williams, Mantle, Jensen, Piersall, Yaz, Rice and a ton of others play at Fenway. Truly a magical place that every baseball fan should visit at least once.

The WS experiences, especially the comeback of ALL comebacks in '04 and the win in '07. somehow it erased the Bucky Dent, Aaron Boone and horror of horrors, the Bill Buckner wicket shot.

Red Sox, yup, always my team.

TomGshotput

I was seven when I first realized my existence made no difference on how the team did. I paused for a second and went back to coloring

JackWESQ

Courtesy of Baseball-Reference, August 29, 1985 is my answer to the original poster's question. I was watching [on television] the Giants plays the Mets at Candlestick Park. I told my brother that on the next pitch, Gary Carter would hit a home run and, sure enough, he did. I was bummed because, at the time, it puts the Mets up 2-0 and I thought the Giants would lose. The Giants would come back and win 6-3 in 10 innings.

I realized then that I watched baseball to be entertained, much the same way I watch a movie to be entertained. So there really was no reason for me to be bummed thinking that the Giants were going to lose. I knew then that the Giants weren't "my team" and that baseball was just a game or, in my case, just another form of entertainment.

Sure I am happy when the Giants win, bummed when they lose. But the Giants winning or losing has a marginal effect, if any, on my life. Like digicat said, baseball "is not my religion, marrage, friends, family, country, political party, or my job."

I am sure about my statement because back in 2002, the Giants were "this close" to winning the World Series, but they ultimately lost the Angels in seven (7) games. Would ANY aspect of my life be different today had the Giants won? I can say with absolute certainty that the answer to that question is no.

/s/ JackWESQ

P.S. Makes me wonder, am I really a fan of the Giants, because I am certainly not fanatical about them.

caramelcollector

to the OP...is that when you became a COINMANIAC?

coinmanic

<< <i>to the OP...is that when you became a COINMANIAC? >>



No correlation but it does take up much of my time.

calaban7

<< <i>1981 during the strike.


Steve >>



Same for me. I'm not quite sure why it took this long , but it is what it is.

The year they struck the WS , that was the cake in the trash can.

I now do fantasy baseball.

TheVon

<< <i> Sure I am happy when the Giants win, bummed when they lose. But the Giants winning or losing has a marginal effect, if any, on my life. Like digicat said, baseball "is not my religion, marrage, friends, family, country, political party, or my job."

I am sure about my statement because back in 2002, the Giants were "this close" to winning the World Series, but they ultimately lost the Angels in seven (7) games. Would ANY aspect of my life be different today had the Giants won? I can say with absolute certainty that the answer to that question is no. >>



While I agreed with Digicat's statement about my baseball team not being my religion, marriage, etc. and I still maintain that to be true, I have to admit that my non-baseball life did change after 2004 when the Red Sox finally won a world series. I actually believe that I became a more positive person after that. My outlook on life became significantly less doom and gloom and I didn't expect to be let down all the time. Perhaps that says that Red Sox baseball was too important to me back then? All I know is that when you grow up being heartbroken by your team that expectation of bitter disappointment seems to bleed over into the rest of your life, often in subtle unnoticeable ways. Winning in 2004 removed a huge psychological weight from my shoulders.

digicat

<< <i>Winning in 2004 removed a huge psychological weight from my shoulders. >>



Heh, well, if the Giants ever win a World Series, I'll have to come back here and say if my life has changed any.