Average Jane's Team Spirit (or Lack Thereof)

The Kansas City Royals are playing in the World Series and everyone around me is losing their minds about it.

Me, well I'm holding steady at the level of "mildly pleased and glad you're all so happy about it." When a local sports team does well, to me it's the equivalent of a friend's child getting a good grade in school: I think it's nice for them and now I'm going to go about my business.

Part of it is that I have never been able to work up any enthusiasm about sports. I remember my dad watching sports when I was a kid, but it was a dad activity and it never occurred to me to join in.

When we started playing sports in school, it seemed to me that everyone else understood the rules and what was supposed to be happening while I had absolutely no idea. So sportsball and I are on different pages altogether.

Then there's the fact that I'm not much of a joiner. I always failed to muster any school spirit because even at a young age I was fully aware that I was only attending that school because I happened to live nearby.

I feel the same way about professional sports. Yes, I live in this town but I could just as easily live somewhere else. I don't play on the team and nothing they do affects me in any tangible way, so what's the big deal?

Most of the time I can slide under the radar with my terrible attitude, but right now it's much more obvious because I'm the only one not wearing a Royals shirt at half the functions I attend lately. I don't even own anything royal blue except that one tank top with the grease stain on it that I should really turn into a dust rag.

People will say, "How about those Royals?" and all I can say in reply is, "Pretty impressive!" I suspect there's some kind of secret sports phrase that's meant to be the traditional response, but I don't know what it is.

At least I know the outcomes of the games thanks to Twitter and Facebook. Oh, and all those TV monitors in restaurants. The shouting and carrying on tells me when things are going well.

The rest of the time I go about my regular life, occasionally reminded of the status of the Royals by the fact that seemingly every fountain in town has been augmented with some kind of blue dye (non-toxic, I hope).

That said, I wish the team luck on their World Series games and I hope they win. Forgive me if I don't buy a t-shirt to that effect. I have enough t-shirts already.

Comments

[Alicia]

The appropriate response is to yell (preferably across a parking lot or crowded room "We're going to the World Series, baby!"

Although, it seemed to confus my coworkers a bit considering I am living in the East coast and typically do not call coworkers baby.

[Barb Holter]

OMG I laughed so hard! I am so glad I'm retired! Work would just be unbearable with the constant blather.