[fratis]

I love sports for precisely the reason you don't.

Generally speaking, I'm militantly rational. My rational brain is engaged in perpetual combat with my powerful Italian-American emotions, and I feel as though even if I win most of the battles, the war will never end.

Except in sports. I love my Mets, Devils, and Giants (screw basketball) with the heat of a thousand stars. My rational brain recognizes the utter absurdity of it, but I simply don't care. It's fun almost because it doesn't make any sense.

In a way, being an avid, emotionally invested fan of something so insignificant is practice for the very real emotional ups and downs inevitably experienced in 'real' life. Sports instruct us both in how to react to traumatizing events (in a safe, controlled environment) and in how to feel, how to attach ourselves emotionally to something.