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Earlier this year I wrote a list of rules for attending professional sporting events like an adult. It covered topics such as what to wear, when to stand and a few rules for when you bring your kid to a game.
Now I don’t have any children, and I’m personally very proud of that. Do you know how hard it is not to get someone pregnant? Do you know how much practice that actually takes? More practice than I ever put in on my free throws, that’s for sure. If there was a league for not getting anybody pregnant, I would be a first ballot Hall of Famer. I mean look at my stats: I’m 9 for 10. That means that 90% of the women I’ve been with – not pregnant. Those are Hall of Fame numbers in anybody’s book! Except for that one woman’s. Her life is over. And I owe her money.
I digress. I mentioned that if you bring either a child or a date to the game that you should avoid “over educating” them on the details of the sport that only a spare few care about or understand. This is especially relevant to fathers with young children.
Last week my Cubs were visiting San Francisco and I sat in front of a dad wearing a matching Giants visor and polo who was enjoying the game with his 5-year-old son. My entire row was treated to three straight hours of the most inane baseball mumbo jumbo being beat repeatedly into this kid’s eardrum without him even able to get a word in. The dad was talking about Matt Moore’s WHIP, and how the Giants have this pitcher named Bumgarner who absolutely rakes once he’s fully healthy, and who knows what will happen if the Brewers fall apart but the Cardinals have a firm grasp on the Wild Card spot, and that was a two seamer and no it wasn’t a cutter. I’m pretty sure the kid could have shit himself and his father would have kept talking.
Dad, we get it. You’re the smartest person in your child’s life. The guys in the office stopped inviting you out for happy hour a long time ago because you couldn’t hide your boner over the All Star game no longer being worth home field advantage. You want your kids to love what you love. But give it a rest. Let them just enjoy the game with their father. Your kid isn’t going to remember a thing you told him today unless it’s “Son, we found you in a river.” The best outcome you can hope for is that when he’s a teenager he’ll turn to you one day and ask, “Hey didn’t we go to AT&T Park once?” and that’s it. Drowning him in the excruciating minutiae of the sport while simultaneously trying to show off how smart you are to a 5-year-old that relies on you for literally everything is a bad look. Plus it pisses off everybody else around you. Give me sorority girls seven days a week and twice on Sundays.
Oh man these 3 x ASU girls behind me at Cubs DBacks know so much about the Cubs apparently Kris Bryant was World Series MVP last year
— JR Hickey (@johnnyjhickey) August 13, 2017
Rewind to: October 8th, 2011. I’ve made the trip from Chicago to South Bend to see one of my childhood best friends start against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. I don’t have a dog in the fight but am there to support my buddy. He gives The Oat and me some Air Force Falcons gear to wear and we head up to the nosebleeds to watch him chop block for the afternoon. In the row behind us is a short, skinny middle-aged man wearing a matching Notre Dame visor and polo (sensing a pattern here?). He’s got his Dennis the Menace looking son in tow along with his way too hot blonde wife who he probably films having sex with other guys to sell on the Internet.
The game starts and the Falcons are getting crushed. They’re down four touchdowns very quickly and The Oat and I are looking for the nearest bar. For those who aren’t familiar with Notre Dame fans, they’re insufferable out in the wild. So imagine how incredibly obnoxious they are on their home turf. This guy was screaming in our ear the entire game and encouraging his Chucky-like son to do the same. Every time ND scored again he would raise his kid above his head and shoulder press him seven times while the rest of the section cheered him on.
The bitch of it was that when he and his kid left to use the bathroom, I started chatting up the wife (naturally) and she told me that nobody in the family went to ND. This loser just loves the team so much because he’s Catholic, from the Midwest and doomed to a horrifically average existence. So he puts all of his emotional stock into a team he has zero connection to. The worst part is that he’s brainwashing his son into becoming a little green and navy wearing douchebag too, leading an entire generation down a miserable path of poor sports fandom.
Let your children make their own sports decisions. My father played college football and never pushed me to get out on the gridiron. He never even pushed me to watch football. I didn’t grow to love basketball until I was in my teens, and one of the biggest regrets of my life will be never seeing MJ play in a Bulls uniform in person. That’s on me. I developed a love for the Cubs from skipping classes in college and sitting in the bleachers drinking beer in the sun for $7 a seat. My love didn’t blossom from my old man shouting in my ear about RISP for nine innings and making me take a quiz when we got home.
If and when I have kids (another kid I mean), I’ll absolutely take them to all the places I loved going as a sports loving teen and adult. When we get there I’m going to let them soak it all in, answer any questions they may have and most importantly: shut the fuck up and just enjoy the memory..
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This week on the preeminent dating and relationship podcast Don’t Take It From Us, Jenna Crowley and I get oddly serious as we give some tried and true dating tips in our segment Tip Included. We also grade two Bumble profiles, one of which received the highest grade I’ve ever given! I then try to make an argument on behalf of fat-shaming men, which Jenna wants no part of. Next week PGP’s Tina returns to the podcast for an all-Bumblebraggin’ episode! We’re also holding another 5-Star review contest. The funniest iTunes 5-Star reviews get read on the pod and the winner gets to be a guest on a future episode! Enjoy!
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JR Hickey
Stand up comedian and writer from Chicago who now resides on the West Coast. JR can be seen performing at Cobbs Comedy Club in San Francisco and Zanies Comedy Clubs in Chicago. His work has been published in the Chicago Tribune and recently he was a part of SF Sketchfest 2015. JR's also the host of the PGP dating podcast Don't Take It From Us. He loves you very, very much.
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@JRwilldoit
Those 3 x ASU girls sound like a good time
I bet they’d love to make $1000-$5000/day. But you can’t just hire a pretty face.
Hardcore fans of colleges of which they are not alums are the absolute WORST. When I was a kid I was a diehard UCONN basketball fan. I didn’t go to UCONN. Know what I did? Gave that shit up and rooted for the school I actually went to. Also, I’m not a college football fan because my school doesn’t have a real team. Them’s the breaks.
Sadly these die hard ND fans are pretty much half the population of Illinois. I can’t even imagine living in Alabama or Texas and the fans out there screaming roll tide when they attended an unaccredited bible college in an office building.
Or “the school of hard knocks”.
I give non-Alabama alums a pass as Alabama does not have an NFL team and that is the highest level of football within hundreds of miles. But to be a diehard Tide fan, YOU SHOULD BE FROM ALABAMA. And this goes the same for places like Iowa, Nebraska, and the like.
ND fans how ever are the fucking worst. I grew up in Northwest Indiana and the ND fans make me fucking cringe. However despite not going there, parents didn’t go there, family didn’t go there, they aren’t Catholic, they aren’t Irish, and don’t live near South Bend, but by the grace of god they become ND fans. And just to make matters worse, they become Notre Dame football/Indiana basketball fans. They usually stop their shit, when you call them out on graduating in the class of 20-never.
I know this is pretty much what ColaJD said, but man it hits home.
I find the most insufferable of fans to be in that particular state. I’m a faithful, but very reasonable ND fan living in Ohio. Buckeye fans have blinders all day, every day all over the entire state.
Holy crap you hit the nail on the head and thank you so much for saying this. My wife and her dad went to South Carolina and are all Gamecock football fans (I went to another SC school, but since being married, am now a Gamecock fan). My wife’s sister and her family are extremely hardcore Clemson fans because her husband just decided one day when he was young to be a Clemson fan. Nobody in that family attended one class at Clemson, never lived anywhere near Clemson, and my wife’s sister’s husband actually graduated from South Carolina last year after doing night school for something like eight years. They are the most obnoxious group of college football fans I’ve ever met in my life. It’s not like any of them graduated from Clemson or even lived in the upstate of S.C….but holy shit, they act like their family founded that fucking school and you say one bad thing about Clemson and they act like you just killed their dog with a machete. Here’s some advice: if you didn’t even attend the school you cheer for, calm the fuck down.
They’re annoying because they’re Clemson fans. It has nothing to do with whether or not they attended the school.
Lets say you’re entire family for three generations went to a particular SEC school. But you went to a smaller D-1 school on an athletic scholarship. Still ok to rep the family teams gear or nah?
You can be a fan. Just not a hardcore, diehard fan.
Nothing is worse than the kid who goes to the only college that would accept them and is a die-hard fan all-of-a-sudden, over the kid who’s had season tickets his whole life and still attends road games. I’ll take the kid who has been a fan their life over that freshman.
The rules go as follows: if you didn’t attend the school, you can be a fan but you can’t flip flop and you can’t be an asshole about it. If you did attend the school, you can do whatever the hell you want.
I think there is some leeway in there. For instance, if you were a diehard UConn fan, didn’t go there, but grew up in Storrs, I think that is acceptable. My alma mater is D-2 and I gravitated toward OU because my parents went there and I spent 10 years in the state. But those who are diehard fans to teams they have literally zero connection to, well they’re just fucking weird.
*But then there are those
Christ
I went to a game at Bryant Denny last year and the fans were awful, the guy next to me didn’t even go to Alabama but wouldn’t shut up about how great Alabama and Saban are. Definitely makes a school look bad when there are tons of fair weather fans.
So if you’re raised as a fan of a college team, but over the years you realize maybe college isn’t for you, or pick a trade instead, you can’t root for that school? I’d take that over the kid who picks the college and is all of a sudden a fan at 18.
You can root for whomever you want. But maybe you’ve lost the right to, I dunno, paint your face at games, call up talk radio and spout off on the team, or name your dog after the school, or whatever other stuff diehards do.
Your team is your choice. In my opinion as long as you’re committed and not A) only a fan when they’re good or B) one of those people with multiple teams then have at it as far as I’m concerned. I’ve pulled for the same college team since I’ve watched sports. That is my team and i’ll pull for them over anybody, even my alma mater.
Looking at you, 98% of the University of Texas fan base.
So, did you let him film you while you had sex with his wife?
You’re always asking the important questions Chilis and I respect that
Yeah but if my kid doesn’t love TCU, the Astros and Texans and pretend to like the Rockets (basketball really sucks y’all), then he’s wrong and I can’t love him.
what if you have a girl? lol
Please don’t scare me like that
the only thing that kid needs to know about baseball is #BanTheDH
Absolutely not
I think I love you.
A thousand Nice Works to you
Amen. AL fans, tell your pitchers to pick up a damn bat
I grew up with a dad who didn’t care for/follow sports. Still bugs me to this day. My children will be fully educated and come out wearing Brady jerseys. Also, congrats on the protected sex.
Might want to go ahead and hedge with Jimmy G jerseys while you’re at it.
Brady?
I’m aware this post was around a situation that occurred at a baseball game but “sports” is a pretty general term…
No it was a joke. Like I didn’t know Tom Brady. Because I hate him and stuff.
Thought you were questioning if I knew what I was talking about like 90% of men do. And it’s ok if I didn’t love him so damn much I’d probably hate him too.
It’s 2017, Nurse. I’d never assume someone doesn’t know sports based on their biological or chosen gender.
Wait, people our age are thinking about having kids? Guys, the food supply is limited and groceries are expensive AF and the tensions around the world aren’t breeding a healthy environment. Don’t be one of those selfish assholes who needs to validate their existence by creating a “mini-me” and bringing them into a world that sucks with no choice of opting out. I mean, think about it, most people opt out of push notifications from apps on their phone because they’re annoying lol, we don’t need any more annoying people, myself included. And don’t give me the whole “but what if that one kid grows up to solve the world’s problems”, we’ve been here for thousands of years and we keep repeating the same dumb problems that have extremely simple solutions. We still haven’t figured out how to create hot dog buns that don’t split at the bottom and fall out when you got to eat them lol
I wholeheartedly agree with this entire comment. I also don’t have any desire to push an actual human being out of my body.
I know I can be annoying but I care and things and stuff
But if I don’t have a kid, that’s one more optimistic moron that’s not being countered. I’ve seen Idiocracy; I know what happens then.
Never! My kids will grow up with an irrational hatred for the Dodgers and U$C.
This brought to memory the time I spent stuck in IAH listening to two Georgia fans in matching visors and polos discuss which 7th graders the ‘Dawgs had their eyes on. There’s gotta be more to life than that, right? (Although maybe not in rural Georgia)
My buddy does his. He’s constantly checking Rivals and discussing kids that haven’t even taken calculus yet and how they’re the “truth” or “the future”
Your kid right now is probably sporting a Curry, Brady, or Bryce Harper jersey right now and it’s your fault for not teaching him to irrationally hate them for no reason
I don’t have a kid, it was a joke. I write jokes. Sorry for deceiving you