Have you ever gotten the random desire to follow a particular sport, but tuned in a few times, and found yourself unable to keep up? Even though you wish, somewhere in you, that you could? Do you find yourself looking at all the crazed, obsessed fans of organizations like the NFL, the NBA, the NHL, and the MLB, and almost feeling a bit of envy, at how much they seem to enjoy their lives, during a good game and a victory? Do you long for the potential camaraderie you might imagine comes with following a sports team?
Well, I have some advice for you, if you want to follow sports. The advice is very simple: Choose a player, just a single player, and start to follow him (or her). Forget, for a moment, about the greater picture, that being teams, or (beyond teams) entire organizations & their long lived history. Just browse around on the news, and find a particular player. It could be an up and comer, a new rookie everyone is recently excited about, or it could be someone already very famous, like Mike Trout, of the Anaheim Angels (who we are now told might just be one of the greatest players in all of baseball history). It could even just be someone small and rather obscure, who only plays right field for some random club, like the Washington Nationals (not too famous in my part of the woods).
But whatever you do, and whatever sport you choose, my advice for the struggling spectator who wants to be interested, is to just choose one player, and try to focus on them, instead of the team. By focusing on the player, one gets to open themselves up to all sorts of goodies. Take, for example, the ability to go backwards in the game catalogue, and have an excuse to watch --yes---even some rather old games. You start follow the history of this one persons life and their success, and by doing that, you start to get a real personal reason to root for a game. Which, in my opinion, can often be far better than just rooting for a team.
The real truth is that almost every lover of sports is, at some point, merely watching for "one player" -- but they often might not realize it, in my opinion, after a number of years have passed, and they especially probably won't mention it in conversation, which is why it always comes off as though they're merely following one big team. For the spectator who just wants to get started, however, and who has no history watching any of the players, this can be difficult to notice. He or she will start watching and go for the team as a whole, and maybe not even really think about the individual players! They certainly might not think about the players back story . But the back story is, really, all a grand part of the fun. Just look, for example, at how much fun people are still having, even in 2018, with the legends of very old players, like Mickey Mantle, DiMaggio, Shoeless Joe Jackson, Ty Cobb, and others. The teams they played on are almost forgotten. But the names never are. This is because all of these sports, just like art really, are far more about the individual than is ever realized by many people.
So, thats why I say. If you are struggling with pro sports but would like to watch, and wonder where so many people find the joy, this is the real secret, far as I see it. Find one player, zero in on him or her, and try to suck up as much as you can about them. Take their side and travel thru the games with them, just like you would travel thru a movie with a lone hero. Forget about the team. Forget about the organization and its long, storied history, and its many new and old stadiums, etc. Find the one player, and you may find yourself, finally, becoming a fan.
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