I used to be a rabid baseball fan going to dozens of games a year at the Vet and elsewhere. I also followed hockey just as rabidly and football less so. That was until Joe Carter proved to me how useless it was to follow sports.

In 1993 I went to baseball, football and hockey games both in Philadelphia where I am from and New York where I was going to school. So I didn't cheat on the Phillies, I went to Yankees games, which a friend's father had season tickets to. I went to one or two Mets games, but that was because I was tagging along with friends.

So the World Series rolls around I take the train back home to see games 3, 4, and 5. The Phillies lost the first two.

October 23, 1993. It was a Saturday night. I was at a friend's house in Brooklyn Heights where we were watching the game on a big screen on WCBS. It looked like there would be a game 7 then Mitch Williams came in. Then Joe Carter hit it out and that was that.

It was that moment when I had an epiphany. Why was I getting worked up over this game. How much time, money and emotion had I wasted on sports.

When I went home the next weekend, I gathered all my sports memorabilia up. Autographed baseballs, hockey pucks, footballs, sports cards, photos, and assorted other stuff. I got rid of everything, it was probably a good time to do it since the bubble hadn’t burst on the baseball card market yet.

Everything went. A framed autographed Dick Perez print of Tug McGraw, batting helmets, Mike Schmidt rookie card, the 1980 Burger King Phillies set, a 1981 World Series phantom press pin, an autographed 1974 Stanley Cup Finals program, and boxes of boxes of other stuff. I wound up getting over $5000 for all the crap.

It felt good. I felt cleansed and I never had a regret.

The next year the baseball strike happened followed by all sorts of idiotic examples of sports greed from stadiums to steroids.

I spent that free time volunteering, hiking, going to the theatre, and all sorts of other worthwhile things. It is almost as if I had broken away from a cult.

In retrospect I wish I had done it sooner.

Thank you Joe Carter, wherever you are!

another cancer person who died young in Philly area. What if he had lived in Colorado, would he have passed so soon? My contention is NO

You should get examined for a brain tumor. Delusional ramblings such as yours are often a sign of one.

I'm just going to tough it out with the Phillies. I figure, if all goes well, I have another forty-one years to live. They should win one by then.

That 1994 strike kind of did me in too. I was a rabid fan of the game before that. I didn't watch for years after that strike. The phoney homerun explosion just turned me off more. I have lately settled into the role of casual fan. The new park makes for an occasional pleasant evening but it really has lost it's meaning. If they win, great, if not, oh well.

whats dellusional ? or seriously more important your giving up on baseball or thenumber of kids with asthma in Philly? or the most depression then every city in the nation or 800,000 at risk for heart disease or the city with most days without good air and guess what this affects people in the inner city more

Whats Tony Snow, Tim Russert and others who died young have in common, they all lived close to coal production. One day you will know Joe why lawyers have sued the polluters and won only to then have lost on appeal to rich judges who allowed people to be poisoned here instead. That is a bigger story in my mind.

You're the only one who cares. Move to Colorado already.

[quote=epoxy;831822]You're the only one who cares. Move to Colorado already.[/q

Seriously I think your wrong about the only person who cares. I hear it from more and more people they are moving out of here but heck its just a numbers game. You delude yourself into thinking its not bad, but before you know it you have many people who not only moved, you get people who don't care to replace those that cared but gave up and moved, they have joined the team that actually crossed over and joined the crime gangs moving here and before you know it, everyhone don't care
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