Underwear, Baseball, and Growing Up

It was 5:30 on one of those persistently cold May Chicago mornings, and I pulled on a pair of briefs before going for a run. I stopped wearing briefs about 40 years ago – first in favor of boxer shorts and later boxer briefs -- but I still wear them to exercise. In a shining moment of clarity, while reflecting on the evolution of my undergarments, I realized why a child born a Mets fan had passed through years of dedication to the Yankees only to eventually settle on the Cubs.

Let me take a step all the way back. I was born in New York City in 1967 to a lifelong Yankees fan from Manhattan and a former Dodgers fan from Brooklyn. While I was still in Doctors Hospital – these were the days before discharge on day one of life – my father presented me with a woolen Mets uniform. I guess the uniform of a still-new team seemed like the perfect gift for a brand-new baby. Given the Mets hopelessness in the summer of ’67, I suspect my father imagined that rooting for them would teach me important lessons.

Sometime late in September of ’69, I briefly toddled away from the TV to use the toilet for the first time. It must have been hard to tear myself away from the game, what with the Cubs’ epic collapse playing out and Tom Terrific and Co. making history. When the Orioles were finally defeated in October, my parents bought me my first pair of briefs. This was back before the trip to buy a first pair of underwear, the culmination of potty training, wasn’t celebrated by allowing the newly continent child to tour the aisles of Target looking for his preferred style of underwear. With this purchase, my parents added underwear to their gifts of life, baseball, and the Mets.

Through my first 10 years, baseball and my beloved Mets were a family affair. The first trips to Shea were with my parents. I learned the intricacies of the game not only from Ralph Kiner but also from my father. This is not to say that there were no outside influences. Childhood friends and I still reminisce about Ms. Kritz, our first-grade teacher, who, in 1973, included “Let’s Go Mets” at the top of our mimeographed assignments. But it was with my father that I watched Rusty Staub knock himself out running into the wall after robbing Dan Driessen of a certain double in the playoffs. It was to my mother that I explained that the Mets had lost game six to the A’s just to make things more exciting.

Before crushes, car magazines, and outright rebellion, early signs of adolescence portend the breaking of parental bonds. As I reflected on it this morning, I think a change in my baseball allegiance was the first hint of what was to come. It was in 1977 that I started to go my own way. It began with the Seaver trade and ended with the pull of new friends — Yankee fans all — and a Yankee championship. By the fall of 1978, sitting in a friend’s apartment watching the playoff game with Boston, I had not only become a rabid Yankees fan, but baseball had become the glue not of family but of friendships.

It was with friends that I went to games (I could finally ride the subway alone). It was with friends that I yelled at the Phillies fan at summer camp who told us that Thurman Munson had died, rubbing the news in with “Long Live Bob Boone.” It was with friends that I pored over statistics and diagrams of Tommy John’s elbow. It was with friends that I shagged fly balls until it was so dark you could see neither batter nor ball. And it was with friends that we endlessly discussed “our” chances next year.

Sometime early in my Yankee fandom, I began wearing boxer shorts. As with the Yankees, it was not peer pressure, just the desire to share good things with friends. It was also the start of the period when one’s boxer shorts were frequently worn as visibly as one’s allegiance to a team. I am sure there is a picture somewhere of me wearing a Yankee cap and flowered boxers hanging out below my shorts. As with most teens, I am probably standing with four identically clad boys.

The Yankee period was a long and, by the standards of today’s Bombers, a barren one. There were great players — most notably Dave Winfield and Don Mattingly — but also seasons of futility. This was probably for the best; the years of late adolescence and early adulthood should focus on the future. It was good not to be distracted. The mediocre Yankees and dozens of boxer shorts were just the backdrop for college and medical school.

Things change when you begin to share your life with someone. What was mine, or yours, becomes ours. Not only do books, pots, and furniture become mutual property, but also friends, cities, and baseball teams. Things that can’t be shared get tossed. My wife and I have shed odious furniture, unattractive clothes, and people whom one of us could not tolerate.

In 1997, we moved to Chicago when my wife matched here for her second residency. In 2000, we decided to stay because, among other things, the city had become our city, not one of ours that the other had adopted. We also began to root for the Cubs. Getting back to the National League reminded me of my childhood. Listening to the humor and sincerity of Pat Hughes and Ron Santo on the radio was enjoyable. Seeing the lights of Wrigley Field from our apartment reminded me of my mother reminiscing about the lights of Ebbets Field shining in her bedroom window.

In 2003, I sat with my wife and 2-year-old son watching the Cubs play the Yankees at Wrigley field. I still considered myself a Yankees fan, but as we sat and watched Mark Prior battle Roger Clemens, there was no question which team I was rooting for. I wore boxer briefs to this game. They are a nice compromise that fit my adult body better than the briefs that my parents bought me or the boxers that friends and I once shared like a uniform.

My son was wearing briefs and a Cubs’ shirt – both of which I had bought for him, quietly declaring a family tradition.