I looked out my dad’s driver’s side window as we passed Camden Yards, a place I had only seen on television but had never experienced in person. My dad turned on West Pratt Street and found a tiny church parking lot that was offering $10 game parking.
“Wow, I can’t believe we found parking so close to the stadium,” my dad said.
As we stepped out of my dad’s black 1994 Geo Prism, the wonderfully pungent aroma of pit beef, Polish sausage and crabcakes, arguably the holy trinity of Baltimorean cuisine, filled the air and consumed my nostrils. Pit beef, which is roast beef cooked over a pit on charcoal and usually served on a Kaiser roll with a hefty portion of horseradish and onions, was by far the most fragrant of the three, providing a unique smoky scent that I associate with Camden Yards to this day. Polish Sausage, known as Kielbasa in most other places across the country, added a lovely hint of pork fat to the air, and the crabcakes finished the perfect balance of smells with a dash of salty seafood that rounded out the trio.
Realizing that I was about to watch my favorite team, the Baltimore Orioles, play at my first Major League Baseball game with my dad, I started to hop and skip down the street toward the old brick warehouse that gives Camden Yards its unique aesthetic beauty. The warehouse was built in 1899 by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company, and it has become both a staple of the Baltimore skyline and an iconic landmark for Major League Baseball ever since Camden Yards opened in 1992.
The full gamut of typical Inner Harbor Baltimore scenes during a weekend day game was on full display as we started walking the three-block distance to the stadium. Food carts, peanut stands and Orioles memorabilia tents filled the sidewalk as the hordes of people were making their way toward the stadium for first pitch. My dad and I stopped at one of the Polish sausage stands and ordered two sausages with mustard and two bottles of water, which we proceeded to wolf down quickly on our way into the ballpark in hopes of being in our seats before first pitch.
Once we got to the left field bleachers, where our seats were, my dad recommended we use the bathroom before we sat down. On our way out of the bathroom, a gentleman in a suit noticed us walking out. He approached my father and said, “I unexpectedly have to go back to work, and I have two third-row box seats right behind the Orioles dugout if you and your son want better seats.”
My eyes lit up. Three rows behind the Orioles dugout! I couldn’t believe our luck. The closer we got to the field as we were walking down the stairs, the louder the crack of the bat and the pop of the ball going into a glove became. Once we got to our newly upgraded seats, we noticed two gentlemen sitting in the seats next to ours. As we began to sit down, one of them said, “I’m glad Paul was able to find people to take his seats.” My dad proceeded to agree with the gentleman and explained how appreciative he was that I got to experience the fantastic seats at my first major league game of my 8-year-old life.
Once the other of the two gentlemen heard it was my first major league game, he turned to me and said, “Well, if it’s your first game, you may as well get your first foul ball. Brady Anderson hit this next to us last inning. It’s yours,” he said as he handed me the scuffed up foul ball. Tears filled my eyes, and I started to thank him profusely. Brady Anderson, who was the center fielder for the Orioles at the time, was my favorite player. I spent the rest of the game staring back and forth between the ball and the field, every few minutes reminding my dad how much fun I was having and how cool this experience was. The Orioles won the game on a walk-off home run by none other than my hero Brady Anderson, and on our way out of the ballpark, I looked at my dad and said, “This is one of the best days of my life.”
I was hooked.
This incredible day is still one of the fondest memories of my life, even as a middle-aged adult. My dad, may he rest in peace, was my hero for my entire life, and this memory with him is one I will cherish to the grave. Whenever I go to Camden Yards as an adult, it reminds me of that day, and I usually end up welling up when I think about it. Many hardcore sports fans have different versions of this story, and many of them end up showing tears the same way I do when they think of their versions. Other people’s tears regarding sports may be for different reasons, but many times they are rooted in the same sentimental nostalgia of their happy childhood memories, which are feelings that are far deeper and complex than the joy of watching people hit and throw a baseball.
In an April 2024 episode of Speaking of Psychology, a podcast produced by the American Psychological Association, special guest Dr. Daniel Wann, Professor of Psychology at Murry State University, spoke about the psychology of sports fans, why people are drawn to sports, and why they get so emotionally attached.
“Some examples that I can come up with pretty quickly here would be, for example, being a fan of a particular team or a sport, or even a player, gives that individual the opportunity to feel a sense of belonging. We are very social creatures. Affiliation is certainly born in us through evolution, and one thing that fandom allows people to do is to get in a part of these groups. I mean, if you reside in a local community and you follow the local team, it’s hard to feel lonely, it’s hard to feel isolated, and it gives you this critical link to others,” said Wann.
It is evident through certain tragic events in American history that sports can provide a sense of camaraderie and community in times when they are needed the most, and September 11, 2001 is the most recent and fitting example of this.
Baseball, particularly the New York Yankees during their run to the 2001 World Series, became a symbol of American resilience and national pride post 9/11, with Rudolph Guliani attending many games at Yankee Stadium for the rest of the 2001 season and President George W. Bush tossing out the first pitch of game 3 of the 2001 World Series, which was played at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx.
Much of America was also captivated by the New England Patriots winning the 2001 Super Bowl, as Americans gravitated to the Patriots because their nickname is symbolic of national pride. Sports were instrumental for the healing of the nation in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, so much so that the 9/11 Memorial and Museum in New York City had a special exhibit focusing on the role sports played in America’s healing. The exhibit was called “Comeback Season: Sports After 9/11,” and it ran from June 2018 to May 2019.
Plenty of American tears were shed as the country watched New York City rally around Rudolph Giuliani’s connection to the Yankees’ World Series run and the President of the United States throwing the first pitch in Game 3 of the World Series in New York City. For a brief period of time, sports infiltrated the hearts of many and became the pulse of the nation. When tragedy and sports intersect, specifically when sports serve as a symbol of resilience and the American spirt, emotions understandably become so strong that tears fight their way to the surface.
The Olympics and the World Cup are also perfect examples of how sports can represent far more than the score of a game or match. In these two examples, athletes and teams represent entire countries, and in some cases, a victory or a loss is symbolic of something far more meaningful than sports. The 1980 Winter Olympics took place during the Cold War, and it just happened to take place in Lake Placid, New York.
Tensions between America and the Soviet Union were already sky high, but the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 had created an even bigger rift between the two superpowers prior to the Winter Olympics in February of 1980. In an underdog story that has inspired books, documentaries, and Hollywood movies, the U.S. Men’s Hockey team, comprised entirely of college players, beat the Soviet Union in the Gold Medal game.
The entire Soviet team consisted of professional players, many of whom were considered some of the best in the world, and the fact that a bunch of ragtag college kids beat the big bad Soviets gripped the nation and produced more than a few tears in American households. As big as the victory was in the U.S., it was far more serious for the Soviets, as they were embarrassed and publicly shamed by their own Government. The United States and 64 other nations would boycott the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow.
Even the harshest critics of crying sports fans may find it easier to understand someone tearing up over a sporting event that intersects world conflict and national tragedy, but they might have a harder time understanding cases that don’t involve these examples. For people who don’t have a deep connection to sports, nostalgia probably seems like a weak reason to sob like a baby when a team wins or loses, but when personal loss and the nostalgic memories of sports meet, even the toughest sports fans can find it difficult to hold back the waterworks.
The Boston Red Sox won the 2004 World Series, their first World Series title since 1918. The Red Sox fanbase is one of the most passionate in all of sports, and they mean more to many in the city of Boston and New England region than any outsider could ever imagine. The vast majority of Red Sox fans had never seen the Sox win a World Series in their lifetime, many of whom were in their mid-80s, and plenty of footage can be found of Sox fans of all ages crying after the victory. After they won, thousands of Bostonians and New Englanders visited the grave sites of their dead relatives who had never seen the Sox win the title, and scorecards, pictures, posters and other items commemorating the title were put around the headstones of their loved ones.
Nostalgic sports memories and deep personal bonds intersected in my life during 2019. I lost my father and my brother in the winter of 2019. My dad grew up in the Washington DC area and was a huge Washington Senators fan as a kid, and he was devastated when the team moved to Minnesota in 1961 when he was only 10 years old. Washington would not get a baseball team back until 2005, when the Montreal Expos moved to DC and became the Washington Nationals. My brother and I also grew in the Washington area, and most of our childhood Washington did not have a baseball team, which is why I was and still am a Baltimore Orioles fan.
My dad became a Nationals fan when they moved to DC, and he was delighted to see baseball back in DC. My brother followed his lead and became a diehard fan. In the fall 2019, The Nationals won the World Series, the first year since 1924 a DC baseball team won a World Series. My dad always said he would love to see a World Series in Washington DC during his life. Unfortunately, neither my dad nor my brother was alive to see it happen, but watching the Nationals win the World Series the same year they died was too much for my mom and me to hold back the tears. As the two of us watched the team celebrate on the field moments after they won, both my mom and I experienced tears of joy and sadness. Tears of Joy because we felt both my dad and my brother somehow knew this happened, and perhaps maybe even had a heavenly hand in it, and tears of sadness because we didn’t get to see their joy firsthand.
Not all emotional reactions to sports are positive or healthy. When people break TVs in anger over losses, ignore their families the day their football team loses or eat horse poop and destroy city property when their team wins (I’m looking at you Philadelphia Eagles Fans), that is when the line is crossed. People who have those reactions are far too emotionally invested in sports and probably need to see a therapist to figure out what is missing in their lives. However, tearing up over a sporting event that helps bring a community together or helps you feel a connection to dead loved ones, is extremely healthy and therapeutic. Many people have that one thing or place that brings out deep-rooted childhood feelings and connections to loved ones. For some, it’s comic books, movies or a particular vacation spot, but for me and plenty of others, it’s sports.