A sport lover's ultimate road trip

In “Fanatic: Ten Things All Sports Fans Should Do Before They Die,” Sports Illustrated writer Jim Gorant details his year-long journey to find the top sporting events that every fan should experience in their lifetime. Here's an excerpt:

Introduction
WHADDAYA SAY, PATRIOTS?" I don’t say anything.

He shouts again, "What do you say, Patriots?" His face is now so close, I can see the blondish stubble of his beard reemerging after that morning’s shave, and if I chose to I could give a fairly detailed accounting of his dental work. I don’t choose to.

At this proximity, our faces are like mirror images, but they’re quite different. Mine is clean and largely expressionless, save the raised eyebrow. His is painted with a primal combination of blue, red, and silver, and twisted into an expression, of what, exactly? Pain, anger, enthusiasm? I can’t say. Nor can I say why he’s chosen to ask me this question. Has he mistaken me for a fellow Patriots fan?

Houghton Mifflin Company

It is the Friday before Super Bowl XXXIX, which this year features the Philadelphia Eagles and the New England Patriots, and we are at The Landing in downtown Jacksonville, a sort of outdoor mall and plaza that has already become the alcohol-fueled core of the three-day pregame party both sets of fans will take part in.

Almost everyone here has some sort of identifying mark, whether it’s a hat, T-shirt, team jersey, or otherwise. Two guys with actual Eagles football helmets drink their beer through straws. Dozens of grown men in green face-paint high-five each other upon passing. Those who don’t are local residents who’ve come down to join the party or check out the scene. I, in contrast, have nothing on that would indicate I’m for either team. I’m as neutral as neutral can be. Maybe that’s why this guy has chosen to get in my face. He needs me to declare my allegiance one way or the other. Friend or foe? I don’t know, but I do know that as the question hangs there between us a palpable tension grows. He’s shirtless. He’s drunk. He’s right in my face.

The reason I’m nose to nose with the face-painter is because I’m an idiot. Not in the same way that he’s an idiot, exactly, but an idiot nonetheless. Ever since I was, maybe, five, I’ve been addicted to sports. I played them all. I watched them all. Football, baseball, basketball, hockey, tennis, golf, badminton, pro wrestling—for chrissakes, my brother and I followed Australian Rules football on ESPN before the network could afford real programming. I’ve watched not just the Grey Cup, the Canadian Football League version of the Super Bowl, but regular-season  games as well; at one point I could name the starting lineup of the Montreal Alouettes.

I was never a total stat nerd, but by second grade I’d mastered the calculus of scoring a tennis match. By third grade, I could tell you all the divisions and conferences of all the major sports, how their playoffs worked, where the wildcard teams came from, and how to calculate who had the home-field advantage. By fourth I understood that "questionable" meant a player had a 50 percent chance of playing, while "doubtful" dropped the odds to 25 percent.

Most kids pined for Christmas; I loved early spring and midfall. In spring, baseball returned, basketball and hockey moved into the playoffs, and college basketball reached its seasonal climax. In October, the NFL was going strong, college football bustled with rivalries and showdowns, baseball played out its bittersweet endgame, and the NBA and NHL began to rev up. The virtual orgy of sports was—and still is—a sports fanatic’s dream come true.

Growing up in northern New Jersey I developed deeply felt regional allegiances. Giants, Yankees, Rangers, Knicks. (This was a typical trend along the Connecticut–Westchester–New Jersey axis. East of Manhattan lay Met, Jet, Islander territory, although the arrival of the Nets and the Devils and the Jets’ move to Jersey have muddled the picture in recent years.) College football: Penn State. College basketball: uncommitted. I loved them all.

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