My two favorite sports are easily basketball and baseball. However, depending on what part of the year you ask me, my answer will easily be one or the other.
That’s because nothing beats your favorite sport starting up again.
There’s so many reasons this is an incredible feeling, many of which are obvious.
From the fan’s perspective, there’s the obvious: renewed hope this could be the year. No one will get hurt on your team, only on the other teams. The breaks will finally go your way. The young players will all reach potentials, the old players will maintain. If you play fantasy sports, that starts up again. You get to go to games again. You have something to do at night again.
It’s all good, and it’s all fairly obvious.
Two other, slightly less obvious, reasons this is a great feeling?
First off, they signal new weather. Football and basketball season signal the coming of fall and winter. Baseball quite plainly signals that those two are over and better weather lies ahead. Even though I can’t say I’m a big fan of winter, each of these sports seasons ushering in a new weather season associates positive memories for me.
The other reason has become much more apparent to me as time has gone on. Boiled down, it’s really just the “absence makes the heart grow fonder” theory. Inevitably, the length of a professional sports team wears on an adult fan. If you’re a fan of a good team that has legit aspirations of postseason play, you’re likely ready for said playoffs by around the midway-to-three-quarter mark of the season.
But after a full offseason, that exhausted feeling is a distant memory. It’s only excitement, only joy about the start of your favorite sport season FINALLY getting going.
Polar Opposite of this Feeling?: Every sport has this point where all you want is the season to end and just get to the postseason. That point, specifically in basketball, happens in the dreary month of February so it’s doubly a downer.
scott spinelli 