Why a sports fan's best friend should be patience

A lifelong addiction needs stages of passion and emotion.

Confession: I’m impatient. The kind of guy who lasted three weeks coaching his son’s tee-ball league, and someone who found out how extra confusing math has become these days. My reaction was calling my wife for Vinny’s math homework help, because if we’re being honest… She’s just smarter.

People take this as offensive, even when I’m talking about me and not them, but I call my brain a good brain. It’s not great or superb, and nowhere near perfect, but it gets the job done. As Brian Regan once said, I’m just trying to get through life without looking stupid-and it’s not working out so far. I kid, but a few self-deprecating shots at oneself is required for everyday adulting activity.

Example: Sports fans need an extra tank of patience, and this applies to all sports. Whether it’s a 162-game baseball season or an 82-game hockey season, the ride or dies can treat every three-game losing streak like death’s ledge, and rise too far above the water with a short streak of wins. Overall, we are a pretty ferocious bunch of humans.

After all, we control nothing but agonize over everything as viewers. We’re on the train from spring training, and while it’s not headed to the Nile with Kenneth Branagh directing, it’s still a bumpy ride. All we’re doing is watching and/or filling the seats, caring about strangers who share a common trait with us: the belief that baseball is an amazing thing. It’s why the small butterflies hit the chest when a 2 for last 23 Albert Pujols strides to the plate, or when Vladimir Tarasenko is setting up in the slot to send something wicked the goaltender’s way.

It’s those moments that will carry us over the times when Pujols weakly grounds out or Tarasenko fires extra wide or mishandles a one-timer attempt. We are in there with them, or at least we think. It’s fascinating to me as I ascend from the younger fella in his 30s to a guy now heading towards 41. (It’s already MAY 9!)

Patience is golden. Silence is completely allowed. Just step inside a time machine and go back to yesterday afternoon’s playoff game between the Blues and the Minnesota Wild. Downtown St. Louis on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon. Mother’s Day gifts coming in the form of sports tickets. My cousin Taylor and her mom, Linda, were screaming long and hard for the Blues yesterday.

That’s what the games do to us. Pick us up out of a foggy day, or slam us to the turf like Jevon Kearse. My grandfather Louis used to pace back and forth on the porch of his home off Bancroft and Macklind. The Cardinals could have been playing in Pittsburgh thousands of miles away, but Papa considered himself to be on the mound. I miss that guy. Cold cokes, a cookie jar, and lazy afternoons are always taken for granted by a kid.

Sports are taken by granted by 10, 20, 40, and 60 year old souls. That attachment really doesn’t lessen over age if you’re an addict. I may not be watching every single game, all nine innings and even a few replays. But I am thinking about the game, checking my phone, and wondering if that scream-type yell from two streets over was a good or bad play. It’s a healthy-ish addiction to have.

Like movies, but more of a constant machine that takes a winter break.

The Cardinals are a month into the 2022 season, and Paul DeJong is Public Enemy of the 314 #1. It’s gotten to a point where fans will get so hateful with their criticism of the shortstop, that normal-writing folks like myself are seen as piling on when we mention he can’t hit the broad side of a barn right now. Yes, it’s easy to pick on his cold start to the season, but that’s only because it’s an ongoing trend that stretches back to September, 2019.

Should I remain quiet about it? Then, a writer is charged with overlooking the slump.

I am rambling. Which is funny, because you’re reading the Ramble On With Buffa newsletter. Can’t say I was lying with that marketing plan.

The point is that over the past few years, I haven’t made it an absolute certainty that the game must be watched live. I am not a credentialed media writer these days, or someone who is in a press box. I can’t afford to do that for free, and have been turned down by the companies who DO pay folks to watch and write. I watch from home, but sometimes at different hours or a little past the start time. I have returned to the good, fun ground of sports blogging.

As a Facebook commenter reminded me yesterday after admitting I wasn’t a baseball expert, “you have no more insight than the regular fan.”

Touche, but I have gained some patience. It should be a sports fan’s best friend.