Sports: The Business of Caring

There are many types of Sports Fans in this world, each of which have their own unique way of enjoying sports. While some of these fan types have less "fan integrity" than others, there is one factor that every fan is able relate to; whether you are a die-hard fanatic, a bandwagon jumper, a homer, an alumnus, or even just a casual fan. That one factor, as Roger Angell put so eloquently in his book Five Seasons, is "the business of caring."

"It is foolish and childish, on the face of it, to affiliate ourselves with anything so insignificant and patently contrived and commercially exploitive as a professional sports team, and the amused superiority and icy scorn that the non-fan directs at the sports nut (I know this look -- I know it by heart) is understandable and almost unanswerable. Almost. What is left out of this calculation, it seems to me, is the business of caring -- caring deeply and passionately, really caring -- which is a capacity or an emotion that has almost gone out of our lives. And so it seems possible that we have come to a time when it no longer matters so much what the caring is about, how frail or foolish is the object of that concern, as long as the feeling itself can be saved. Naivete -- the infantile and ignoble joy that sends a grown man or woman to dancing and shouting with joy in the middle of the night over the haphazardous flight of a distant ball -- seems a small price to pay for such a gift."

For some, the business of caring will encompass a lifetime, tracing back to a youthful memory such as a first trip to the ballpark. Others may only find themselves in caring for short periods of time, be it for the two hours of tailgating leading up to a big sporting event, or the last two minutes of a close playoff game.

Some of us may care because our pride demands it, while others care simply because they were given a free ticket to a game. It may be the case that the only reason a person cares is because for some unfathomable reason that they will never understand, the emotional well being of a loved one rests solely on the outcome of the next play, and for that reason and that reason only, they give care.

In the end, it matters not who or why we even care. What matters most is that for some moment in time, no matter "how frail or foolish" it was, we took a second and cared about something.

-dunkie