I went down to San Francisco this past weekend with Buddy One and three of his other friends. Actually, three of us went down from Seattle and met up with two others in the Greater Bay Area (is Sacramento part of the Greater Bay Area? From now on it is, dammit).
A few stories emerged from the weekend ("emerged" is an odd word choice... I might just be tired and sloppy, or the verb might reflect the passive nature of how I approach adventures: just put yourself in a situation and see what happens) but rather than go into beer pong or karaoke tales, I wanted to focus on the last major event of the weekend: the Seahawks game.
People who have known me for a long time know that I'm a pretty big sports fan. I played sports from a young age all the way through high school at a relatively competitive level. I played IMs in college. I collected baseball cards and played Strat-o-Matic baseball and followed the Portland Trail Blazers rather religiously. I've been in the same fantasy football league for over 15 years.
I'm a sports fan.
The thing is that something funny happened to my fandom. I can't pinpoint an exact date or even year, but I believe that I became a bit of a closet sports fan some time after moving to the Greater Puget Sound Area (is Renton part of the ... never mind).
What do I mean by this? People can't tell, most of the time, that I am a sports fan. I rarely wear sports apparel, I don't talk much about sports to people I don't know well, and I almost never attend live games.
This is quite different from the time before I lived in Washington, and it made me wonder why. So, rather than leave you in suspense, I will reveal the two major reasons:
- My ex-wife. She was great in many ways and in many ways we got along great. She was not a sports fan, though, and while her a(nti?)pathy towards sports didn't stop me from watching or discussing/ranting about sports, the utter absence of comprehension, interest and any sort of spark of anything positive about what I was into regarding sports sort of sucked the joy out of it. (Whether I mean "my marriage" or "sports" when I say "it" is something I will leave for you to figure out.)
- My career. I've had two employers in Seattle since I've been here. Both were agencies with a lot of creative people... the kind of people who have only owned Apple computers and listen to NPR podcasts. A lot of smart, nice, good people... who didn't give a shit about sports. It was only in the last couple of years that I had more than one or two people in the office (of around 30) that I could possibly talk sports with.
I suppose I unlearned the habits of talking about sports to real people and relied on Web-based outlets to argue about the Blazers and fantasy sports to have interaction above and beyond television broadcasts and box scores. That I now have friends who actually are into sports, and that I've actually dated women who like sports... I still haven't grasped it emotionally, and my communication skills have lagged, so I feel awkward talking about them in a way I don't feel awkward talking about, say, vacuum cleaners or kitty box cleaning or karaoke (the three most important things in my life in the last 17 months).
Another reason that I don't talk sports in person? I don't think that I relate to the average sports fan. With the exception of the Blazers, I almost never care about who wins a game. I care if I have a fantasy player involved, and I care from a curiosity or historical perspective, but I don't get fired up and I don't feel real passion the way so many fans do. Even regarding the Blazers I'm more analytical and patient and ... cold... than many fellow fans.
I felt the difference in San Francisco this weekend. I root for the Seahawks more than I do any other NFL team, although I don't get too invested. (I'm more upset, for example, that I lost my fantasy matchup this week than I am excited by the big win the 'Hawks had).
Even setting aside the level of interest, my mental approach is just different. Seahawks fans were pockets of blue in a general sea of red in the stadium, but they were pretty loud and quite conspicuous any time something went well for the team. That's just not me.
I found myself looking at the crowd. Not people watching, exactly (although some women were definitely worth watching, for the record). I was watching for mob mentality manifestations. I was interested to see how the police blocked off a section towards the end of the game to prevent all of the Seahawks fans from accumulating there (and then withdrawing their cordon after about 15 minutes of trying to turn people away). I was fascinated/horrified by fights that took place in the stands and in the parking lot. I was horrified/impressed at how many $9.50 beers were sold throughout the course of the afternoon.
That has nothing to do with what was happening on the field--although the play definitely influenced those things (well... maybe not the beer sales), as well as costing me my fantasy game (O'Sullivan got benched and got me 0 points... I ended up losing by 5).
Going to games is almost a distraction. I would have seen a lot more--and, perhaps, at some level enjoyed the game a lot more--by watching on TV, with my browser pointed to NFL.com so I could get stats of other games. As an overall experience, however, I am definitely glad I made the trip down there.
I'm not sure if that means I'm more or less of a sports fan than I used to be.
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