As sports fans adjust to the surreal new normal of empty ballparks and arenas, carved hollow by COVID-19, you half expect each of America's team sports games to be part of some Twilight Zone tableau. As our eyes focus on the new optics and mechanics, it's still impossible to purge the pure memories of your first game, when you reached up to clutch your parent’s hand, eager for them to explain balls and strikes, fouls and free throws, or run versus pass plays.
These cherished childhood moments carry us through adulthood, and remind us why sports served as a binding force, keeping us together while meeting new people and learning new things. It's a spiritual baton passed down the generations.
Here's a list of five things we will miss during this fan-free NFL season.
MomentsMy dad took me to my first football game on December 10, 1983, to watch in awe as my gang of superheroes, the Pittsburgh Steelers, whipped the Jets, 34-7. It turned out to be Terry Bradshaw's final NFL game, because of an injured elbow that hounded him for two years. It was also the last pro football game ever played at Shea Stadium. There's a family in New Jersey or New York or any of our splendid states who won't get to take their sons and daughters to their first NFL game this year, to watch these titans play America's greatest sport. Though you, the parent, do it for your child, you quietly cry with joy watching him or her sit, stand, and cheer with unfettered glee, the kind only a child can feel for the first time, and the kind you can only feel as a mom or dad.
TailgatingThough born and raised on the small island of Manhattan, I, like millions before me, hopped the Hudson for the lower rents and calmer nights of New Jersey. I'm now five minutes from MetLife Stadium, and as an incurable NFL junkie, I've spent the last few seasons driving through the kaleidoscopic weather seasons over 16 Sundays, hopping on Route 3 west for three minutes then bending off into Route 120 toward Moonachie (the real home of Giants Stadium). Slowed to cruising speed, I snap, from my moving car, smartphone shots of Big Blue or Gang Green tents and smoky grills and footballs crisscrossing through the cool autumn air, and the happy parents tending to their steaks and their kids with equal aplomb. Or I catch the single guys - or the married guys who pretend to be single for six hours every Sunday during the NFL season - sprawled out in cloth chairs, surveying their land and coolly inhaling the spicy air through their flared nostrils, usually beverage in hand. The NFL experience is hardly from whistle to gun. Beyond the athletic splendor and acrobatic scoring, it's the preparation for the games that add so much meaning to these fleeting hours.
WeatherWhether the weather is oven-hot in early September, cool and breezy in October, or offensively cold and windy in December, football is the one game that plows through the elements. Baseball routinely rains out. Basketball and hockey are played in warm bubbles. But the NFL game is a crapshoot, a wild montage of sun and snow. To paraphrase the great John Facenda, the baritone bard of NFL Films, games are so often, "played in the wind and cold November mud." If you're watching on TV and wonder how these giants survive the frigid climes, imagine what the half-sized fans are suffering. Folks used to bring pints or flasks of their favorite brown booze to keep them cozy in the cold. Now you likely pay $10 for a cup of beer, but the approach is the same. Meanwhile, kids don't even care about the weather; the worse, the better for them.
IntimacyHockey fans will brag about the in-house intimacy of watching NHL games in person, pucks and players crashing against the glass. While NFL fans aren't an arm's length from the field, sitting outdoors and feeling the same sun, wind, and snow as the players forms a portal into their world. You can scream as loudly as you want and no one will find you weird. You've spent countless quid on tickets and taxes and parking fees and seating licenses just to walk into an NFL stadium and melt into the mayhem of a pro football game. It's the one place you're not judged, bugged, or bossed around. Everyone is there for the same purpose - to root for a football team to win a football game. Sure, you find the occasional drunk who spits while he speaks, saying things not fit for families. But that's why they have security at these things, to make sure you get to enjoy your experience.
Each OtherIf you've ever watched the docuseries about Chicago Bears fans, you know all the effort that goes into rapidly following your favorite NFL club. Entire families from the Windy City had a courtship with the Bears that can only exist in football. The rituals included dashes to stadium-sized grocery stores to grab the meats and sauces and charcoal, the veggies and salts and seasonings. They lug these boulder-heavy bags back home to prep for pregame parties at home, or in the back lots of Soldier Field. Backyards become devoured in scents and smokes, and entire blocks are swathed in navy blue and burnt orange in salute to their Monsters of the Midway. The wins bring preteen joy, the losses invite a forlorn feeling snaking down the street. Perhaps half the fun of going to an NFL game is the unifying comfort that comes from the folks you meet in the stands or during these Bobby Flay demonstrations in the shadow of the old stadium. We make most of our friends as kids. But as adults we get to act as kids again, and open ourselves to new friendships, ideas, foods, and cultures. The sports arena is the real American Melting Pot.
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