WORLD SERIES 2024
Why I Love Wacky Sports Fans
They add fun to my life even if they make others cringe
Maybe it’s because I’m the granddaughter of a former semipro baseball player who was brave enough to found the first fan club in Peoria, Illinois, for the luckless Chicago Cubs.
Or maybe it’s because, when overpowered by the smell of sweat and Old Spice on New York subway in July, I’ve smiled on seeing a New York Yankees fan heading for the Bronx with his bare chest painted electric blue.
Or maybe it’s because I live in Alabama, where football fans take any failure to win a college football championship as personal insult that calls for the mental equivalent of wearing a black armband until next season.
Whatever the reason, I love zany displays of enthusiasm for a favorite team. Others may cringe at sports fans’ excesses and see them as a national embarrassment like the giant turkey legs at Disneyland or the movie Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.
But those fans make an art form of wacky exuberance. Sometimes what makes me happy is going to the Museum of Modern Art to see Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. Other times it’s knowing that a St. Louis Cardinals fan once had a mural of the entire Busch Stadium painted on his chest.
