How did you get hooked on baseball?

[mikelink45]

2 hours ago, bighat said:

A World Series Championship during one's formative years will certainly bring in a lot of new fans. I was 12 years old in 1987 and that post-season run cemented me as a Twins fan for life.

I'd been hooked since much younger, probably since 1984 when my teacher told me to go downstairs and visit the school secretaries' office. Opening the door I saw my grandpa and great-uncle, smiles on their faces and Twins tickets in hand. They were busting me out of school to go see an afternoon Twins game. Crackerjacks, hot dogs with mustard packets, the organ, big announcer voice coming over the PA, the whole nine yards. And this was back during the Metrodome days, which was quite possibly the worst stadium in professional sports. I don't remember the score or even who was playing, but I was captivated. Look what's going on in the world, there's so much more to life than my little classroom in room 301 at Jefferson Elementary School.

Wanna get your grandkids interested in baseball? Next April or May, show up at their school with a couple of Twins tickets for a Wednesday afternoon game.

 

How exciting that must have been.

[East Coast Twin]

A friend and I both decided to live on campus one summer during college.  Neither one of us had any money, so we couldn't really do anything.  We couldn't even afford to eat some days.  So every night we'd sit in the dorm room (hungry) and either listen to or watch the Twins play.  My friend knew quite a lot about baseball, so we'd talk/argue throughout the games.  It was the summer of 1984 and the Twins were in contention for a playoff spot until late September.  I went from being a football fanatic to a baseball fan that summer.

[Longdistancetwins]

My older brother was a Twins fan; odd, because we lived in New Jersey.  I’d be up early with him on summer mornings where he’d be studying the standings in the newspaper.  I needed his explanations to questions such as “What does it mean to be 1/2 a game behind?”  All that stuff really mattered that season because it was 1967:  Even as a new, 10-year-old girl fan I realized that I had stumbled into the greatest pennant race in history!  Sure, we were disappointed in the final-day result, but I was hooked.  “What ‘til next year” became wait for 20 years—Twins and Cardinals, with a happy result.

As for my brother, well, he moved to New England and became a Red Sox fan.  I can’t give him too much grief because he wears a David Ortiz jersey and has a soft spot for the Twins.  

 

[Rosterman]

It was part of grade school outdoor activity. Every playground had a baseball playing field. We would happily play pick-up grames where we just rotated around the field to batting. Favorite pasttime was hitting balls as one jogged the outfield, then trading places. Or pitching in the alley, using the narrow part outside the garage door as the bounce back and strikezone. You used tennis balls and happily enough garages were tall enough that you seldom had to get balls out of fenceless yards, or worry about breaking windows.

 

The Twins came in 1961 and WCCO radio was king, and we would love to listen to Ray Scott and Halsey Hall and Later Herb Carneal. Baseball cards became more important. One card, one stick of gum for a penny. We would trade amongst each other, play a modified game with just dice, and later strato-cards were discovered and games became more elaborate. Cards came out in series, one checklist every four weeks it seemed. 

 

Part of city schools, at that time, was using baseball games as special incentives to be a good safety patrol person. Or maybe dad would take you to the bleachers for a knot-hole game. We has a business executive friend who worked for Cargill and he would take me to summer afternoon games in box seats behind the Twins dugout. And every year for a decade to the Twins "Welcome Home" banquet where I and another kid or two were it amongst the suits, which started my autograph collecting which still continues to this day (I just finished my 300th letter for this summer, writing for autographs from ALL Twins players and minor league players, and many others in the organization, plus past Twins in the majors and minors...a task I have done for decades - don't ask me how many autographs I do have).

 

Maybe it was because there were fewer teams, fewer players...but we loved them all. Players that played above and beyond were worshipped. But it all boiled down to that baseball was a game that most anyone could play, if you could run or hit or field or throw straight. Though we may have a dream of playing ball, it wasn't like when I became a dad and you had parents preparing their kids to be prods at T-ball. T-BALL!?! Even in high school, if you wanted to play, you could play on the soph squad. It got a bit more cut-throat for the senior squad and often the amount of practice and work would weed out those of us that did it more for fun, but if you wanted to put in the time and energy, you were...respected.

 

We played a lot more. Random gatherings. Kids ran more free back then. You would leave he house and come back 3-5 hours later, visiting a few homes, stopping at the park a couple of times. You and your folks (or dad) would happily bring a pal or two to a game, as would other dads. And when you had television, black-and-white, you were in heaven. Live! And the announcers. A thrill!

 

[Longdistancetwins]

We would go out in the street for a catch (happily, we lived on a cul-de-sac in New Jersey), but we girls had to borrow our brothers’ gloves.  There was one glove that was not broken in, and no one wanted the stiff one.  But when it was my turn to use it, I looked down, and it was signed, Tony Oliva.  Being a brand new Twins fan, that was enough, and from then on, I always wanted that glove.  Tony-O became my favorite player, and there is continued satisfaction in my good taste.  

[Unwinder]

I went to a friends bachelor party somewhere around 2013, and one of the items on the agenda was a stop at a ballgame in the nosebleed section of Target Field. I was struck immediately when we entered the stadium by how awesome the game looked. As I recall, it was a very unremarkable game, with the Twins getting lazily steamrolled by the Tigers, but I was mesmerized by how monumental the game looked in flesh and blood in the environment of that excellent stadium. Until this point, baseball had been sort of nostalgic American background noise to me, but in person it seemed vital.

In 2016, my sister, who is prone to suddenly picking up obsessions which turn out to be contagious, decided we were going to get into baseball, and challenged me to look up the Minnesota Twins roster and pick out a favorite player. I chose Miguel Sano, simply because his broad face and huge frame seemed interesting. She chose Byron Buxton because he reminded her a little bit of Will Smith. We had no idea that they had been huge, wildly-heralded prospects. This is a pretty stupid part of the story. We didn't even watch a single game that year, and I did not expect anything more to come of it than the brief Elvis kick she got me into the previous year.

In 2017, my sister and I showed up at Target Field with her boyfriend (now husband) and my girlfriend (now wife) eager to cheer on Sano and Buxton. I don't remember anything that happened in that game, except that we had the time of our lives,

Likewise, I went to a game in 2018 with a friend and had a blast, though I remember nothing beyond noticing that this Astudillo guy seemed like a real live wire. I remember him swinging and missing so hard he lost his batting helmet.

2019 happened, and I became deeply obsessed. I did not get a chance to watch very many games outside of seeing two at Target Field, but I followed recaps of every game, followed the stories of every player, celebrated Sano's monster season, willed Dobnak into a playoff start (sorry about that) and consoled myself with the all-time home run record. I followed everything with equal fervor last year.

This year, I believe I'm making the transition from just loving the Twins to loving baseball as a whole. Since the Twins have not performed to expectations, I've started to take interest in minor league prospects, and have been to CHS field six times, mostly to cheer on Jose Miranda (whose AAA debut I was lucky enough to catch). Likewise, I've been able to take a rooting interest in a few other MLB teams as heroes Berrios and Cruz have gone to clubs that compensated us generously (plus I listened to that really good John Bois podcast about the Mariners, and now I'm fascinated with them too).

I don't follow any sport other than baseball, here's why I think I took interest in it over other sports:

-Going to live games is affordable, and with so many games per season, it's easy to fit into my schedule, and easy to go on a whim.

-It's easier to tune in and tune out than something like Soccer or Hockey. Ironically, the pace of play issues that make baseball less exciting to watch also make it very suitable for ambient background entertainment.

-With games played so frequently, and so many players in the farm system, there's something new to talk about every day.

 

[Unwinder]

I also want to add that players with personality were really essential for hooking me in. While it's easy to sneer at following players for "stories" or "antics" when you're mostly concerned about winning, you've gotta have that stuff for newcomers who have no frame of reference for what a normal slugging percentage or ERA looks like. My first few games, I couldn't differentiate between all the tall, gaunt white guys, but the massive Miguel Sano, the temperamental Eddie Rosario, the mustachioed Randy Dobnak, and the incomparable La Tortuga were inherently interesting to me and I wanted to see what they'd do.

[Longdistancetwins]

4 hours ago, Unwinder said:

In 2016, my sister, who is prone to suddenly picking up obsessions which turn out to be contagious

Does your sister still follow the game?  What about your spouses?

[Unwinder]

1 hour ago, Longdistancetwins said:

Does your sister still follow the game?  What about your spouses?

My sister and her husband are more interested in attending live games than in following the Twins (especially this season). They've been going to Willmar Stingers games in the Northwoods league, and went with me to check out their first Saints game a few weeks ago (they claimed to be instantly addicted). My wife accompanies me to games and enjoys them, and knows a few players' names (she's an enthusiastic Tortuga booster) but does not think about baseball when not currently at a game. She's mostly familiar with the Saints roster, and is as excited to root for veterans like Kerrigan, Maggi and Broxton as she is the hot prospects.

I would say that my sister and her husband are a pretty good example of people who would be deep into MLB baseball if it was easy to watch on TV. Might buy them an mlb.tv subscription if I draw one of their names at Christmas.

[Nine of twelve]

The cereal box cards. Post cereals. 1962. That was me as well. I was 6 years old then, and that captivated me. Coupled with that my parents were always Twins fans. Of course, it is the game itself that has kept me a fan for all these years.

[Craig Arko]

The 1967 World Series; Boston (narrowly beating out the Twins for the AL pennant) vs. St, Louis. I was 10 years old, no previous interest in the sport, but was captivated by the individual human dramas within the larger story.

[Longdistancetwins]

6 hours ago, Craig Arko said:

The 1967 World Series; Boston (narrowly beating out the Twins for the AL pennant) vs. St, Louis. I was 10 years old, no previous interest in the sport, but was captivated by the individual human dramas within the larger story.

Yes, great Individuals—Gibson, Lonborg, etc.  Unfortunately, my ten-year-old self blamed the Twins disappointment on the great Carl Yastrzemski, so it took a while to appreciate him.  I remember my mom brought home something called “Yaz bread” and my brother and I refused to eat it.