DOWN MEMORY LANE
A simple tweet brought waves of readers’ earliest sports recollections
What began as a single tweet turned into hundreds of childhood souvenirs.
Feeling nostalgic, I inquired on social media, “What is your earliest sports memory? Either inperson or on TV.”
The response overwhelmed me. Not just the quantity of comments but also the depth of emotion and detailed markers of time, place and circumstance. A collective nerve was struck. We all long for connection. As the complexity of life whirls around us we also seek some semblance of simplicity and innocence.
At some point over the past seven decades — for many of us it feels like an eternity ago — we experienced that freedom from complication in the wow and wonder of our first interaction with sports.
To be sure, not every memory brings soothing comfort. More than one follower and friend recalled being turned off by a parent, almost always their father, screaming at the TV during a poor play, blown call or unhappy ending. I met a woman Christmas shopping whose dad, in the days before TV remote controls, ordered her to “get up and change the channel” when his team ticked him off.
More often, however, anguish brought families together, whether in shared disdain for John Elway, Joe Montana or Jose Mesa. Or over the agony of The Drive, The Fumble or David Klingler. Misery truly does love company.
Mostly our earliest memories are positive, even when the result was negative.
Duane Daniel tweeted of his introduction to sports on TV: “Reds losing the ’72 World Series. Was fascinated by A’s uniforms, mustaches, etc.”
My own earliest sports memory is an amalgamation of “feels” that coalesced when I was about 8 years old, which in most people is when true memories replace “false” ones, i.e. what we remember only because they were repeated to us as stories.
I had no special affinity for the 1969 New York Mets — I grew up a fan of the Cleveland Indians, as much as one could be a fan of Max Alvis, Vic Davalillo et al — but as a developing pot stirrer I claimed the Amazins’ as my own for the six days of the World Series. That’s right, the Mets-baltimore Orioles series lasted less than a week. My mother’s friend loved the Orioles, so of course I went the other way. When New York won 4-1 the thrill of victory jump-started my sports fandom.
A few months later joy turned to family frustration when Ohio State inexplicably lost to Michigan. Externally, it seemed best to put on a sad face. Internally I giggled that two adults would be named Woody and Bo. Seven weeks later, happiness returned to the homestead when the Kansas City Chiefs defeated the Minnesota Vikings in Super Bowl IV.
Who knows why my brother cheered for the Chiefs? But I still remember him going unabashedly berserk as Kansas City receiver Otis Taylor broke a tackle for the clinching TD in the Chiefs’ 23-7 win.
From that point on, sporting events attached to my memory like box cars to a train engine. Yet it all began with a single locomotive, as it did with Ann Fisher, who hosts her own show on WOSU.
“Going to a Green Bay Packers game in the mid-1960s in a snowstorm with my dad,” she Tweeted.
Fisher does not describe herself as a huge sports fan, but that matters not. Her earliest memory is as legitimate as that of the rabid cheerleader who spends the weekend wired to the NFL, NBA and NHL. Freezing at Lambeau Field as a 7year-old just learning how to navigate the adult world was a comforting if cold way to fellowship with her father.
In reading the Twitter and Facebook responses, repeating themes stood out, including Reds games, whether in person at Crosley Field or Riverfront Stadium or on radio with Marty and Joe. Jim Brown carrying tacklers for extra yardage. Ohio State games. Obtaining that first autograph. Attending high school games in gyms that felt massive but in hindsight were relatively small.
Stitched into nearly every attendance memory was the tingle of getting to see a sports hero in-person for the first time.
“Seeing Hank Aaron play for the Milwaukee Brewers against Cleveland at Municipal Stadium,” wrote Mike Todd, arena host during Blue Jackets games.
“Going to Riverfront as a kid, seeing guys you only saw on TV, who were legends in my mind,” said Mark Davis, who grew up admiring The Big Red Machine. “I’m thinking, ‘I’m here!’ In the upper deck it feels like I’m four miles away, but I can see them!”
Michael Cooper remembered walking into a high school boys basketball game with his father for the first time in the mid-1980s.
“I was maybe 4 or 5 years old. It was a crazy atmosphere. I was hooked,” Cooper wrote.
“Red Right 88,” Scott Duda sighed, digitally.
“Listening to Marty and Joe call a Reds game while I followed my grandpa around his property,” wrote Seth Shaner, echoing many whose memories of loved ones dominated their comments.
Former Dispatch sports reporter Shawn Mitchell sent this: “For some reason the Raiders-eagles Super Bowl and the 1980 election are forever mixed up in my memory. I’ve always blamed (Eagles QB Ron) Jaworski for the Iranian hostage crisis.”
You can find many more recollections at Dispatch.com, but let’s end this mind game by remembering that young sports fans have not disappeared. They are among us and their memories are just getting started. Their age-related cynicism fortunately remains years in the future, so let them enjoy the moment. Cheer them on as they dip their toe into the thrill and agony of it all.
roller@dispatch.com