The Middle Age Baseball Fan

Because baseball is not real life, you get to enjoy the declines

The Cubs are having a great season. Though I’ve only rooted for my (present) hometown team for 22 years, it makes me nervous writing that sentence. It feels a bit like stepping on the foul line; I might have just jinxed the whole season. I guess 2016 did not exterminate all ghosts of late-season collapse. The 2025 Cubs season reveals to me what I love about being a baseball fan, what has changed about it in late middle age, and -- because this is Substack and I need to be profound -- how it relates to real life.¹

There are two kinds of successful baseball teams. There are the expected champs, the teams that everybody knew would be the team to beat, and there are the overachievers, teams that seemed like they’d be only just fine.

The ’73 A’s, ’75 Reds, ’98 Yankees, and ’24 Dodgers were the former. The latter are more interesting, teams like the ’69 Mets, ’05 White Sox, and ’16 Cubs. These teams surpass expectations because everyone plays beyond their abilities.

I am writing this during the All-Star break, and the Cubs are having that kind of season. The top story has been Pete Crow-Armstrong (PCA, Pete Crow All-Star). Last year, PCA’s rookie year, he hit .237 with 10 home runs. This year, just over halfway through the season, he is hitting .265 with 25 dingers and 27 steals. Of course, one player a pennant contender does not make. Many of PCA’s teammates are having career years. Seiya Suzuki, my favorite on the team, averaged 64 RBIs in his first 3 years on the Cubs. This year, he already has 77. And then there is Matthew Boyd, a 34-year-old journeyman pitcher. His average ERA during his 11 years in the majors is 4.61. This year, it is 2.34. He’ll be pitching in the All-Star Game.²

When I was a younger fan, rooting for an expected champ or an overachiever, if my team began to fade, my reaction would be, “Oh well, wait until next year.” This equanimous reaction probably came from growing up a Mets fan, the son of a recovering Brooklyn Dodgers fan.

Now I know that reaction only makes sense if your team is an expected champ. That team will be good next year. For the overachiever, I now know it is now or never. There is no way everything will click in the same way again. Theo Epstein knew this in 2016 when he traded a sure prospect, Gleyber Torres, to the Yanks for Aroldis Chapman at the trade deadline. Theo knew it was now or never. (Of course he did.)

The difficulty about running the overachieving team is that they are overachieving. Therefore, it might all disappear. I don’t know what will happen at the trade deadline this year, but it is conceivable that the Cubs bet the farm, trade away great prospects, and then Armstrong, Suzuki, Boyd, and the rest of the team regress to the mean, falling behind Milwaukee or (God forbid) St. Louis.

How else has my rooting changed? I have always known that part of the pleasure of baseball is knowing that it is not real life. When the Cubs lose, or even go down 6-0 in the 5^th, I shrug, turn off the radio, and go to bed. When they win, I smile, but I also forget about the game almost immediately.

Even the players know it is not real life. One of my favorite quotes is from Reggie Jackson, who said, "I was reminded that when we lose and I strike out, a billion people in China don't care."

Because baseball is not real life, I can enjoy the ephemeral success of individual players. Sure, PCA is likely to have a few great years ahead of him, but only a few. Suzuki will have even fewer. I don’t expect Boyd will ever achieve this level of success again. When I watched games as a young person, I didn’t think like this. When the Yankees fell short in the disastrous and depressing 1979 season, after winning pennants in ’76, ’77, and ’78, I fully expected them to be back in 1980. I could not imagine Nettles, Piniella, or Jackson ever fading.

While baseball is not real life, it can be a microcosm of it. “Time waits for no man” is less discouraging when applied to baseball, and not just because the inevitable decline is happening to impossibly wealthy, gifted athletes who get to play baseball for a living. The decline of players is so evident and pleasingly tracked, statistically. It happens fast, over years rather than quarter centuries. It is less painful, not being a matter of life and death, but only about batting averages and home run tallies. I asked AI to graph some stats for me, and the cruelty of baseball is so obvious. Here are Tom Seaver’s wins, Don Mattingly’s HRs, and Rod Carew’s BAs.

It reflects poorly on me that I take some solace in seeing the players who beat up on my teams wane. Watching George Brett in the early ‘90s or Christian Yelich today gives me a little bit of satisfaction.

Our own, real-life decline happens imperceptibly. It’s only when you write a piece like this that you start considering the signs, and they exist in small, isolated realms. They are private and easy to explain away. Sure, I never stay out late, but what’s better than getting into bed with a book at 9:00? Of course, I run fewer days each week because otherwise I get hurt, but I make up for it with other forms of exercise. Also, unlike in baseball, nobody is keeping stats on me. I am happily not tracking the speeds of my swims, lengths of my bike rides, or how long it takes to write a Substack post. I could look at the social security website for my yearly income or Google Scholar for my citations, but I’d still just explain away unpleasant findings.³

I enjoy rooting for the Cubs now, almost as much as I did rooting for the Yankees in the ’70s and ‘80s, though what I enjoy about the fandom has changed. I’ve always appreciated baseball as an escape, but I didn’t spend time pondering the arc of players’ careers when I was 13. I’ve always celebrated great player achievements, but now I recognize the difference in the standout years that PCA and Boyd are having in 2025.

I’ve also learned not to argue with people who insist on explaining to me why baseball is boring. Now I just listen, smile, and quietly think less of them.

1. Bear with me here. I named this site Baseball, Music, Art, and Other Non-Medical Dalliances, but I am finding it harder to write about baseball than about anything else.

2. I shared my thoughts about Matthew Boyd with one of my patients, a Cubs fan in late 80s, so well beyond “middle age.” He told me I was wrong. He thinks Boyd is a new man after Tommy John surgery. That discussion will hopefully continue.

3. Ok, I did look on Google Scholar. My citations are declining, but I’ve convinced myself it’s because I now publish on Substack, rather than in JAMA.