This illness began at an early age and I believe it is hereditary. My Dad was a sportaholic and his dad was too. It was around age 7 when my dad introduced me to the game of baseball. We sat by the television eating our peanuts and crackerjacks. Everything else in life had become unimportant to me. The Smurfs, The Atari, The Cub Scouts, and my homework would all now play 2nd fiddle to a midweek Phillies game in May.
This illness has become an obsession as baseball turned into hockey, which then turned into football, which then turned into basketball, which morphed in Collegiate sports. It has now ballooned into olympic sports, golf, bowling, soccer and yes...Spelling Bee. I can rattle off stats or in the case of Spelling Bee, words, that no human being should ever know about anything. I attend games, I skip important life events and I generally plan my life around a sporting event.
I try to keep June clear in case the Sixers / Flyers are in a championship run. I also have the Super Bowl date plugged into my brain. Ditto for baseball in the month of October. It was at one point in my life where I convinced my wife that we should have a November wedding instead of an October wedding just in case the Phillies made the World Series. As it turns out, the Phillies not only made it to the World Series but they won it 10 days before the wedding. Who says sportaholics don't think straight?
I know that the only two days of the year, where no sports are televised are the day before the baseball all-star game and the day after the baseball all-star game. These dates will now be known as potential birth dates for a future child of mine.
I know its a disease because my sportaholia is not just something that appears when a team is approaching a championship game. My sporteraholia makes me eager to watch a 3-13 Sixer's team play on a random Thursday night because I want to see the beginning of a hopeful winning streak. It effects me later that week when I want to watch an Oregon State basketball game because their coach is Michelle Obamas brother. It makes want to find a 24-hour internet cafe in Israel so I can follow an Eagles game at 3am Jerusalem time.
There lies within my issue. I can find an angle or compelling issue to follow with virtually any game in any sport. I find myself identifying with millionaire athletes that have nothing in common with me. As a person battling sporteraholia, I also have a small case of Theateritious, which is the case of one loving the art of theater. Thus doctors have surmised that there is a strong correlation between the two. Watching a sporting event is much like seeing a fine theatrical production. There is a cast of characters, a plot, a climax and sometimes like a Lebron James buzzer beater, there is a big finish. I find myself caring for and rooting for athletes who I will never meet or see in my life.
In 2001, The Sixers were on a run to win the NBA championship. Early the playoffs that year, our star player, Allen Iverson, fell on his butt and bruised his tailbone. The injury threatened to keep him out a few games and all the cities infected sporteraholics openly wondered "How is Allen Iversons ass doing?" Its nice to be empathetic sometimes but my guess is that Allen Iverson wasn't at home thinking "I wonder how Ryan's toothache is doing?" These games, these players and these sports have become a fabric of my life.
For a longtime this disease was caused by loseritious. This happens when your home town goes over 25 years without winning a championship. As previously mentioned, this drought ended 10 days before I was married in 2008 but I felt it coming back in recent years. This was evident when The Eagles lost in the NFC championship game in early 2009 and The Flyers lost in the Stanley Cup finals in June, 2010.
I don't how to cure this illness but what I do know is I love sports. I am Ryan Rosenbaum and I am a sportaholic.
