A Hard-Core Fanatic, but in a Sane Way

Although I’m rapidly nearing the point where I can manage my own life, my mother still has many meaningful contributions to make.

If you don’t believe me, just ask her.

She isn’t the nagging type, so her help typically comes in the form of newspaper clippings, which she sends on a semiregular basis and which I stack in piles on a table before they eventually tumble into a strategically placed wastebasket. Her prolific output makes me wonder if the Denver paper she reads daily has a special section, just for her, entitled, “Things My Son Should Know but Doesn’t.”

Judging from the stuff she sends me, Mom has spotted a number of gaps in my knowledge:

“Is This the Right Time to Buy a House?”

“How Well Do You Know Your Mutual Fund Manager?”

“Does Your Health Have to Deteriorate After 50?”

“What To Look for in a New Mattress.”

“How Many Friends Are Too Many?”

Because she’s Mom and I picture her sitting at the kitchen table with scissors in hand, carefully clipping each article with only loving intent, I dutifully read all submissions. How long I retain their content is another story.

Until one day last week.

The article ran in the Denver Post, and came by way of the Kansas City Star.

The headline:

“Sports Fanatics Saner Than the Rest of Us.”

The first paragraph:

“A growing body of research suggests that passionate die-hard sports fans--far from being the lonely, alienated get-a-life losers psychologists once suspected them to be--are in reality just the opposite.”

Reporter John Fussell did his homework. He interviewed at least two sports psychologists, including one who told him that sports nuts are not only happy and well adjusted, but suffer fewer bouts of depression than those who are uninterested in sports, even when their favorite teams lose.

As always, Mom had come to the rescue.

Mom Makes It All Better

She was responding to a phone conversation we’d had this summer, when I told her my near-lifelong support (43 years) of the Pittsburgh Pirates was out of control.

Instead of mellowing with age, I seem to get more irrational. It peaked in early June when the Pirates, slogging through a miserable season, lost a close game.

Shortly, I got in the car and, out of nowhere, began screaming wildly at the top of my lungs (windows rolled up) while driving down Beach Boulevard. I wouldn’t want to tell Mommy what her little boy yelled but the unplanned eruption, lasting about a minute, even alarmed me.

A week later, the Pirates blew a big lead and lost again. No screaming; instead, I went for a walk in an unfamiliar neighborhood with circular streets and got so distracted by my repressed anger that I couldn’t find my way out until I asked a guy in his garage for directions.

The next day, I told some friends (including one Mets fan with whom I’m engaged in a seasonlong bet involving our respective clubs) that I was “stepping away from the game” for an undisclosed period of time to get my priorities in order. For a couple of weeks, I eliminated both my reading of the sports page and my agonizingly ritualistic nightly checking of TV for scores.

I confessed all this to Mom, who told me everything would be all right. She probably then had a sleepless night.

She must have exulted when she read in the Post what a mental health expert said about fanatic fans:

“Their devotion and loyalty to teams and players is truly admirable. By and large, these are happy, healthy people who’ve simply found something they really love. Not all of us can say that.”

I don’t know which is more reassuring--knowing I’m not a lonely, alienated, get-a-life loser or knowing that Mom still keeps an eye out for me.

Let’s just say I’m feeling pretty darn good about things right now.

No clipping from Mom would be complete without her two cents’ worth, which she usually writes in the margin.

So she did with her latest. Short and sweet, her words offered a sentiment any middle-aged son longs to hear from his mother:

“See,” she wrote, “you’re quite sane, after all.”

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by calling (714) 966-7821 or by e-mail to dana.parsons@latimes.com.