When I was a kid, I followed baseball. I quit around the time of the strike and Nolan Ryan retiring. I then watched basketball through the Bull’s mid-90’s runs. Since Jordan quit, all I’ve watched it racing. I’ll watch any kind of racing; NASCAR, Indycar, F1, MotoGP, etc. I’ve gotten into cycling again over the past two years. Mostly MTB, but I’m building up a rode bike too.
49 years old and have never watched a baseball, basketball, hockey, etc game, live or on tv.
Packer parties are cool though, being more food and socializing oriented.
I sometimes ponder on how much better the world could be if all the time and energy spent on games could be put towards more substantial use.
My Mig doesn’t care at all for sports. Every once in a while he’ll go to a get-together to watch Mexico play soccer but I think that’s more for the atmosphere than the sport itself.
I think your co-worker is wrong.
What you’re experiencing here is also known as “the zone,” and it’s experienced by athletes in many sports. Spectator sports are all competitions, but not all sports need be, or at least not competitions between people. Your challenge is in the bike and the trail and yourself.
In fairness, I think it’s very hard to develop a love and understanding for the games by watching on TV. I think it has to come from somewhere else first.
I’ve only the most casual interest in sports, for the most part–even hockey, far and away my favorite sport to watch, I don’t really follow. (This could be from living in a town without a major hockey franchise; we’ll see what happens when I move.) Like several commenters, I really don’t know how folks can keep up with it at the level of detail that seems to be required if you want to participate in a conversation. There doesn’t seem to be a middle ground with sports: you are either an absolute sports geek who knows everything imaginable about one or more sports, or you don’t follow 'em at all. Leaves me in an odd place, as I try to keep up just enough to be able to make a little bit of conversation here and there.
Reading this thread, I’ve been wondering if everyone’s been giving their age just because the OP did, or if there’s something else going on. Are younger guys (I’m 31, by the way) less likely to be into sports or something? If so, I’ve never noticed it…
I’ve watched several games on TV in its entirety. I’ve probably been to a dozen or so baseball games (Tigers), 2 or 3 hockey games (Red Wings), and maybe 5 or 6 Football games (Lions) throughout my life. I’ve only ever been to home games. And I’ve only watched the games on TV with true, dyed-in-the-wool fans of the game. And of course the inevitable exposure of just living in a society where sports is lauded and praised among most men, and saturated in all media.
I believe, it’s simply just another manifestation of geekery. Just channeled toward the tedious, esoteric category of commercialized sports. The problem here being, the minority of guys who aren’t interested, are seen as pansies or incomprehensible as to how someone could not love something they’ve identified with for their entire lives (for the most part), as well as, how it’s just part of male culture to the point of it being almost taken as a given that you’re a guy, so you must love sports, so even complete strangers in an elevator or even in line at the Secretary of State will assume you’re into [insert team/sport here] and ask you what you think about it.
Bwah?! 
It’d be like if the majority of men were fixated on knitting (not that there’s anything wrong with knitting)… and were surrounded by commercials, programming, the ins and outs, the whose who of knitting. And not just knitting, but all its relatives of knitting. Crocheting, macrame, and so on. The best of each of these professions are idolized by boys and men all across the nation. They talk about their favorites, and what they’re doing right, wrong, or arguing over who’s better and who should be allowed to knit next year, up and coming knitters, and knitters who will be drafted or traded for knitting competitions.
Then there’s the knitting playoffs or championships. Bracketing of knitting teams, rules about knitting, and who will be the champion of knitting for the year…
Let’s not forget sponsoring, movies, and… aww fuck it… Are you bored yet?
I’m lucky in that the vast majority of sports conversations I stumble into are about British rugby or football (soccer), so if they don’t know any better, they think it’s just that I’m American.
Well noo I don’t turn a blowout off… I’m a total sports nut… I watch baseball, basketball, football, hockey… MMA… Tennis… Its keeps me occupied while I’m knocking out my cardio…
I would sense that this would be the environment where non-sports fans could be comfortable… ironically what i find at work is a number of guys who play video games and could care less about that Phenom… Jason “The Say Hey Kid” Heyward… (rookie plays baseball for the Braves…)
I still read … follow other subjects… keep up in politics… aware… Just a sucker for a good 2-1 baseball game… or a knock down physical Ravens versus Steelers game…
Count another one, here. Call it partially a simple lack of interest, and part of it me simply [del]harboring a soul-branded hatred and thirst for revenge[/del] bearing a little grudge. For all the times those damn games preempted something I wanted to watch as a kid. All those Saturday mornings. All those cartoons. Lost…
Not to mention all the shows I tried to watch as an adult that got preempted or scheduled opposite sports, and then got canceled for having low ratings. Bastards.
The Olympics are OK, though…it’d be nice if they showed anything besides Olympic Beach Volleyball, though (not the worst thing they could show, admittedly).
I’m of two opinions about this:
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It’s a free country (supposedly) and you can be interested or disinterested in whatever you want.
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If you met somebody that didn’t know what you feel they should know (e.g. who George Washington is, which side of the US the Atlantic is on, etc.) do you think they’re stupid?
Imho, you don’t have to be a fan of sports to have knowledge about sports. Like most “general knowledge,” you just pick it up along the way. For example, I hate soccer, but I know what the World Cup is, how often it’s played, and that the US sucks at it. A person who doesn’t know anything about sports, imho, is willfully ignoring sports. Just by being alive, you should know which sports OJ Simpson, Babe Ruth, or Wayne Gretzky excelled at.
What professional sports programming is on on Saturday mornings?
Heh
I KNEW I was going to get into trouble with the ‘gay’ remark.
I just hope y’all know I was deliberately being an ass.
For what it is worth, I almost never have the opportunity to actually watch any of the sports I enjoy. Something to do with having a life, I guess.
I did, however, get to watch the NBA game last night with my son-in-law. That was the first game I have watched in about 6 months, and if it weren’t for sports talk radio I would probably not be considered a fan at all.
Oh well. Maybe I will become independently wealthy and move to a South Sea island with Satellite TV!
Hey, we can all dream can’t we?
I know which sports those guys played…but I had no idea until reading this thread how often the world cup was played ( which is, I guess, an example of ‘picking it up along the way’ without meaning to…it just took me 37 years to stumble upon that).
Until last year I had never watched a single sporting event. My daughter decided to play softball and I figured I should have some inkling of what the game is about if I’m going to watch her play. So with the help of a thread here last year I learned the basics of the game and started watching some. Now I love baseball, and watch quite a bit of it, either on TV or, even better, at the local minor league park nearby. I love listening to the games on the radio on the long drive home from work at night, too.
I think the reason I alwasy steered clear of sports was less the sport than it was the sports fans. So many I knew were so obnoxious about it that I just couldn’t see hanging out with those people. It took me 37 years to realize that at least some of these people were just having fun and shouldn’t have been taken so seriously. Once I put my prejudice against jocks aside and made an honest effort to appreciate the game I found I really enjoy it. Sharing it with my daughter probably helped a lot, too.
I sorta learned to like sports in self-defense, initially, to fit in at family gatherings. Then after a while I started to realize that I enjoyed both the rah-rah tribalism (yes, I’m a Steelers/Penguins fan) and the tactics/strategies employed. Realistically, I’ll never turn on a game unless I’m with a group who wants to see it, because that’s the draw for me. So I still couldn’t tell you who the players are without a program, or keep up with the water cooler conversation, so I get flak both ways now. 
My wife is a hockey obsessive and a Flyers fan, we have occasional issues due to that.
Where does that put me on the spectrum?
I’m not a sportsd fan. I like sports - when I’m playing, or watching a team in person. Trying to watch the game on TV just bores me to tears.
Are you actually comparing ignorance of who George Washington or where the Atlantic ocean is to ignorance of what sport some random player is associated?
Really?
To be fair, he’s comparing those things to ignorance of the absolute best or nearly the absolute best all time players in a given sport is. Well, except for O.J.
I’m not a big sports fan, but I’d think that a truly well-rounded person ought to have a solid idea of who Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky, Pele, etc are.
Let’s see, Michael Jordon is basketball, tiger woods is golf. I think Wayne is hockey but no clue on pele. And we’ve about hit the limit of my sports knowledge there. Give me a team name and there’s maybe a 50% chance I’ll know what sport it is.
I grew up in a non sports watching house and was home schooled. So I had little to no exposure to pro or high school sports. I never developed an interest as an adult either.
I think a non-sports person can appreciate the athleticism and grace of the greatest players in a sport. Like some of Michael Jordon’s most amazing moments, where he did something that appeared to defy physics, or Pele flipping upside down and kicking the ball into the goal.
The difference is that we’re not going to watch full games hoping to see a moment like that.
For instance, a sports fan friend regaled me with the story of the statistically improbable 3rd “perfect” baseball game in as many months, and how the umpire made a bad call and had the grace and character to admit it and try to get it changed. It really did sound like a very compelling story, and I think I’d like to see it as a movie some day.
But a baseball game where one side gets not one run? Sorry, but that sounds as dull as dishwater and only interesting as a statistical oddity.