What is your first sports memory?

What made you a fan, set you up for all the suffering, misery, disappointment and, oh yeah, joy of following a certain team?

Those questions came to my mind during last month’s Philadelphia/Penn State week from hell, which began with the Phillies losing to the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game One of the NL Division Series (and Penn State getting upset by UCLA) and ended with the Nittany Lions’ upset loss to Northwestern.

Throw in two bad Eagles losses and Orion Kerkering’s season-ending throwing error, and it was enough to make me wonder why people — myself included — put themselves through all the angst for the occasional (rare?) glory.

Where does it begin?

I’ve been told my mother watched every game of the 1968 World Series — a seven-game classic between the St. Louis Cardinals and Detroit Tigers, featuring Lancaster’s own Don Wert — in the weeks leading up to my birth. I’ve always assumed that partially explains my love for baseball.

That’s the sport that led me down the path that’s led to a lifetime of fandom — and that has me sitting here writing about, well, sports.

The first year that I can remember anything athletically other than playing games in the yard is 1976.

I recall watching the Summer Olympics from Montreal on a little black-and-white TV, with the message that the broadcast was coming via satellite (which I thought was the V-I-A satellite). Bruce, now Caitlyn, Jenner won the decathlon.

I went to my first Phillies game later that summer. Someone bought group tickets for a family outing that included uncles, aunts and cousins. Our seats for the August game against the Houston Astros were in right field at Veterans Stadium, near the big scoreboard that hung there, and beer can banks were given away by Schmidt’s for the bicentennial.

I don’t remember much else, except that the Phillies lost.

I’ve long ago looked up the box score. The score was 8-3. Mike Schmidt went 0-for-4. Greg Luzinski homered. Bob Boone started at first base. Wayne Twitchell was the starter. Elizabethtown native Gene Garber pitched one-third of an inning in relief.

That loss didn’t matter. By then I was hooked. Something clicked. I started collecting baseball cards that summer (which I still have). Obviously. my dad listening to the games on the radio played a big part.

That’s the beginning I remember.

Things just grew from there.

Talking about Sunday’s NFL games with my friends on Mondays in fourth grade.

Penn State’s college football run in 1978. (Penn State, we’re great, No. 1 in ’78).

The 1980 U.S. Olympic ice hockey team.

Bobby Clarke and the Flyers. Dr. J. and the Sixers.

Going to my first Eagles game in 1983, against the St. Louis Cardinals on Sept. 25. Two things stand out. We got to the gate right at kickoff and the crowd’s roar from outside the Vet was unlike anything I had ever heard.

And during the game, the PA announcer kept saying that the Oct. 16 home game against Dallas instead would be played in Texas if the Phillies made the World Series. They did, falling to Baltimore in five games.

I do remember the Birds lost, but I didn’t realize until I looked it up that Roy Green caught a 26-yard touchdown pass from Jim Hart with 29 seconds left to give the Cards a 14-11 win.

Funny, because my older self wouldn’t forget such a disheartening loss, especially seeing it in person.

Still, my older self also would be back the next week sitting in front of the TV, rooting for a winning result.

Better days are always ahead, or at least that’s the hope.

I guess that’s why we keep coming back: Hope for a better tomorrow.

Brian Smith is the deputy sports editor for LNP | LancasterOnline. Email him at bmsmith@lnpnews.com.

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