Roger Angell died last week. He was a truly great writer and wrote about baseball a lot. The link below is a good article on his life.

https://defector.com/see-what-you-find/

One of my favorite Angell quotes:

"It is foolish and childish, on the face of it, to affiliate ourselves with anything so insignificant and patently contrived and commercially exploitive as a professional sports team, and the amused superiority and icy scorn that the non-fan directs at the sports nut (I know this look - I know it by heart) is understandable and almost unanswerable. Almost. What is left out of this calculation, it seems to me, is the business of caring - caring deeply and passionately, really caring - which is a capacity or an emotion that has almost gone out of our lives. And so it seems possible that we have come to a time when it no longer matters so much what the caring is about, how frail or foolish is the object of that concern, as long as the feeling itself can be saved. Naivete - the infantile and ignoble joy that sends a grown man or woman to dancing and shouting with joy in the middle of the night over the haphazardous flight of a distant ball - seems a small price to pay for such a gift."

I'd say the same can be said of college football fans (not "yet" a professional sports team). Secondly, I'd say it is also a sad commentary, that many people indeed have nothing greater than a sports team to care deeply and passionately about.

It's all about balance and perspective in life. Sadly, I've seen too many on here with comments that would fit exactly with the follow description (taken from the linked article), especially in the real-time in-game threads here. Buckeyes down a TD and suddenly its "fire everyone" and "these kids suck!"

(From the article): "If you insist on sitting at the center of the experience you will care a lot in the least meaningful way. Everyone you see will work for you in various roles, and everything that doesn’t happen the way you want it to happen will arrive as a personal affront. Basically every result will disappoint to some extent. Many people care about baseball (and other things) in this way, either despite or specifically because of how little it demands; all you really need to do is want. Caring like this is finally just a matter of appointing yourself boss of some people you will never meet and then fuming privately over their poor work product."

Food for thought. Happy Friday everyone. Love your teams, just love them in the best possible way - a way that's good for your soul, not harmful to it.