Talking baseball
This entry from susandennis reminded me of a bit of my own history as a baseball fan, which I will put behind a cut to save screen space for those of you not interested.
When I was growing up in New York City, my mother, my older brother, and I were all avid fans of the Brooklyn Dodgers (my father sometimes showed interest, nut I think it was largely feigned). After the Dodgers left for Los Angeles, my loyalties drifted, and by the time I finished college (by which time I had moved to the Boston area, where I still live), I had pretty much lost interest altogether.
Not so for my brother, who eventually settled in Philadelphia, and became a serious Phillies fan, indeed a season ticket holder. So, although we have always gotten along well and have plenty of things to talk about, baseball was not one of them (although I confess that I paid some attention in 1980 when the Phillies won their first-ever World Series).
Sometime during this period, I read Steven Jay Gould's The Mismeasure of Man, a book-length critique of the system of IQ testing. In the course of complaining that the tests often involved cultural knowledge as distinct from raw intelligence, he commented that one such test expected the person taking it to know who Christy Mathewson (major league pitcher from a very long time ago) was, and added that "my intelligent brother, who has no interest in sports" was unable to answer this question. (Gould himself was a serious baseball fan.) I could almost detect a hidden "otherwise" before the word "intelligent" in that sentence, and could imagine my brother using the same locution. (I told him this, to his amusement.)
Then came 1986, and for some reason jwg, who had been a Yankee fan in his youth but had become even less interested in baseball than I was, noticed that the Red Sox were in the World Series, and suggested that we watch some of the games. After the unfortunate result of that Series, we stopped watching again, but I started at least glancing at the sports pages during baseball season, and in the middle of the 1988 season, when the Sox suddenly took off and won something like 12 in a row, I said "Hey, this could be interesting", and started watching games again -- and we were hooked. We are now season-ticket holders ourselves (sharing weekday games with four other sets of people, and thus going to 13-15 games per year), and watch every game if we're home.
And now my brother and I have an additional topic to talk about on the phone. As it happens, his interest in the Phillies, although not gone, has cooled sufficiently that he gave up his season tickets, in part because of the expense and hassle, and additionally his wife has mobility issues that pretty much make it impossible for her to go to games. So maybe I can mow claim to be the more serious fan.
When I was growing up in New York City, my mother, my older brother, and I were all avid fans of the Brooklyn Dodgers (my father sometimes showed interest, nut I think it was largely feigned). After the Dodgers left for Los Angeles, my loyalties drifted, and by the time I finished college (by which time I had moved to the Boston area, where I still live), I had pretty much lost interest altogether.
Not so for my brother, who eventually settled in Philadelphia, and became a serious Phillies fan, indeed a season ticket holder. So, although we have always gotten along well and have plenty of things to talk about, baseball was not one of them (although I confess that I paid some attention in 1980 when the Phillies won their first-ever World Series).
Sometime during this period, I read Steven Jay Gould's The Mismeasure of Man, a book-length critique of the system of IQ testing. In the course of complaining that the tests often involved cultural knowledge as distinct from raw intelligence, he commented that one such test expected the person taking it to know who Christy Mathewson (major league pitcher from a very long time ago) was, and added that "my intelligent brother, who has no interest in sports" was unable to answer this question. (Gould himself was a serious baseball fan.) I could almost detect a hidden "otherwise" before the word "intelligent" in that sentence, and could imagine my brother using the same locution. (I told him this, to his amusement.)
Then came 1986, and for some reason jwg, who had been a Yankee fan in his youth but had become even less interested in baseball than I was, noticed that the Red Sox were in the World Series, and suggested that we watch some of the games. After the unfortunate result of that Series, we stopped watching again, but I started at least glancing at the sports pages during baseball season, and in the middle of the 1988 season, when the Sox suddenly took off and won something like 12 in a row, I said "Hey, this could be interesting", and started watching games again -- and we were hooked. We are now season-ticket holders ourselves (sharing weekday games with four other sets of people, and thus going to 13-15 games per year), and watch every game if we're home.
And now my brother and I have an additional topic to talk about on the phone. As it happens, his interest in the Phillies, although not gone, has cooled sufficiently that he gave up his season tickets, in part because of the expense and hassle, and additionally his wife has mobility issues that pretty much make it impossible for her to go to games. So maybe I can mow claim to be the more serious fan.