NFT: Nostalgia in Sports

Jeter's enshrinement in the HOF has me feeling very nostalgic. I miss seeing #2 in pinstripes. The teams that he was a part of, the players he played with, make up magical memories for me.

I could say the same about players of other sports. Football, obviously. I've seen players like Montana and Rice lighting up the field, LT crushing offenses, and Emmitt Smith busting through holes in a D-Line.

I'm getting up in years. My kids are all grown and just starting to branch out. Soon, they'll have families of their own.

I remember, growing up in the early 70's, talking to my grandparents about Yankees baseball and that feeling of my jaw dropping when I talked to them about the M& M Boys, the Yankee Clipper, Whitey, Yogi & Rizzuto and, of course, the fabled stories of Ruth. Over the course of my life, I have enjoyed bigger-than-life players and sports legends: Mr. October, Mohammed Ali, Joe Frazier, Wayne Gretsky and a score of others.

I like to envision sharing these names and times with my old grandchildren. But I have this nagging feeling that it just won't be the same for them as it was for me. I feel that kids these days are less into watching and experiencing sports than they were when I was their age. There's a lot of reasons why this might be true, like free agency, low attention spans, tons of other things to do with your time...

That makes me kinda sad.