Sports Introvert

I was working last night and there was a couple that came into the store wearing Detroit Tigers shirts and hats.  I was super excited!  There aren't a ton of Tigers fans around the Twin Cities.  Apparently there's a professional baseball team here?  I kid, I kid...the St. Paul Saints are a great team (ohhhhh.....).  Living outside the state of Michigan, there are few Detroit sports fans around.  So any time I see someone wearing a Tigers hat or a Lions jersey (saw someone wearing a Joey Harrington jersey yesterday at work.  Weird, right?) or a Red Wings toque I get really excited on the inside.  I want to run up and start talking Detroit sports with this random person.  But then I realize I don't want to look like a crazy person so I don't.  Even when I go to a game when I see others wearing Detroit gear I usually go with the head nod.  The 'yeah, we support the same team' nod.  But it's a head nod and we move on. 

I am a bit of an introverted person.  We went to the second game of the season for the Tigers here in Minneapolis.  We were surrounded by Twins fans with a few cells of Tigers fans around our section.  The nice thing about living in Minnesota and going to a sporting event is that there are no mean people there.  Minnesota Nice is a real thing.  The game ended with a walk off double for the Twins.  The guys next to us looked over, smiled, and just said 'you're team is better than this game.'  WHAT?!  You don't expect that.  You expect smack talk.  You expect gloating and screaming and yelling about how your team sucks and it's not their year.  Anyway, with the Tigers fans around us, we didn't feel it necessary to find out where they were from.  How do you relate to some random people you'll never ever see again that are from a different part of the state you may have never heard of and in the state you haven't lived in close to a decade?  Unless you find out they're from the same hometown.  

Even last year when we went to a game we ended up behind a family of Twins fans.  The father of the family turned around after we cheered about a Tigers hit or play and asked where we were from.  We told him we lived in the Twin Cities now but we were from the U.P. originally.  He said that he was originally from the Detroit area.  Part of me thought 'who cares' while the other part of me thought 'that's cool, but now you're a Twins fan?!  TRAITOR!'  I'll never cheer against the Tigers.  So it was an awkward conversation especially when he handed us is real estate agent card.  I understand he is an independent real estate agent and tries to network whenever possible, but still.  Awkward.  This is the kind of thing my mind tells me to avoid doing.  

I am not someone who will walk up to a random stranger and just start talking about a sports team because they are wearing a hat or a shirt.  Partly because I'm scared of them saying something like 'oh, I just bought the hat because I like the Lion' or 'I love the old English D so I bought the hat'.  Which would totally send me over the edge.  I would never buy a sports team hat because I like the design of it.  Wearing a sports hat usually means that you are supporting the team.  You should be able to walk up to someone and start talking about the season a certain player is having or the chances of the team making the playoffs.  If someone buys a hat because they want to have the hats of all teams of a sport (yes, there are people like that) or because they like the design of the logo are they even sports fan?  See, I don't want to go off the rails and start yelling something like that at a total stranger.

If someone comes up to me and starts talking Detroit sports, I will engage them about the team.  I'm polite enough to do so, but I know we won't end up all buddy buddy.  So keep it quick and focused.  Don't talk about where you're from because no one cares, just keep it on the team you are both there to see.  Talk about the highs and low of the season and where you think they need to improve.  And the chances of the team making a playoff run as it nears the end of the season.  Without jinxing the team.  So maybe at sporting events is the best time to approach others wearing your team's colors.  It makes sense, I know, but you would be surprised once you live outside your state how happy you are to find other fans of your team.  Happy enough to run up to them and start talking sports?  Maybe.  But without that awkwardness?  Maybe not.