When I was about four years old, I found my first love: the New York Yankees. It started out simple; my parents liked them, so I had to like them as well. When you are that young, you don’t exactly get a choice on what goes on the television, and the more I paid more attention to it, the more I liked it. 

For a while, it stayed that way: just me and my Yankees. I would look forward to Opening Day every year, at first because it would always fall around my birthday, but also for my new love of baseball. It took me a while to catch on to other sports, but eventually I got into football, basketball and – as of this year – hockey.

I often hear the phrase, “you care too much,” when it comes to consuming sports. There is a common notion that because sports aren’t a matter of life or death, they matter inherently less than other things one could care about. That somehow, passion for something so inconsequential is silly and childish.

To that, I say, you just don’t get it. 

You don’t get how much it hurt to watch Juan Soto leave for the New York Mets. You don’t get how awesome it is to watch Matthew Schaefer play hockey. You don’t get how much one win can bring a city together, or how one loss could tear its collective heart to pieces. You probably never will. 

“It’s not that deep.” To some of us, it is. Why does everything we care about as a society have to be a matter of grave importance? Why should anyone care about anything at that point? Should we all move on, only caring about breathing? No, the fate of the universe won’t be decided by the outcome of a sports game, but that doesn’t make it something to just scoff at.

You don’t have to know what a first down is or be able to tell the difference between a normal foul and a flagrant foul, but you can still understand the importance of sport when surrounded by people who care. My sister has always been the type to refer to everything as “sportsball,” yet whenever I watch one of my teams around her, she gets it. Even if it’s just cheering for the team with the right jersey on, it’s the thought that counts. 

Because within these environments, we can find ourselves. Whenever I attend a game, everything else turns off for a couple of hours. For the duration of the game, I don’t care about any kind of difference or disagreement you and I may have. If we are wearing the same logo on our shirts in the stands, we are friends for the time being. To me, nothing else has that unifying power. 

What is really that different between being a sports fan and a fan of a musician? Or a specific filmmaker? How different is it to watch every snap the New York Jets take versus being a “Disney adult?” It’s all entertainment, just different types. 

So, no thanks, I will not chill out about my favorite teams. I will keep yelling at my TV when Anthony Volpe strikes out on a pitch in the dirt. I will keep pumping my fist in the air when the New York Islanders score a goal. I don’t plan on ever stopping. 

I am forever grateful that my parents decided to subject me to the Yankees in my youth. I can’t wait to do the same for my kids someday. If they like them even half as much as I do, it will have made it all worth it.