April 22, 2014, 5:05 am
From http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/
Do you root for a certain team? Is there a movie you constantly watch, a book you read over and over, a band you love more than all others?
When did it start?
In the Sunday Review piece “They Hook You When You’re Young,” Seth Stephens-Davidowitz argues exactly that:
The most important year in a boy’s baseball life is indeed age 8. If a team wins a World Series when a boy is 8, it increases the probability that he will support the team as an adult by about 8 percent. Remember, this is independent of how good the team was every other year of this guy’s life. Things start falling off pretty fast after the age of about 14. A championship when a man is 20 is only one-eighth as likely to create an adult fan as a championship when a boy is 8. Just winning games also matters, with a similar age pattern. But the data shows that there seems to be something really special about winning championships.
These results mean a successful team leaves a huge imprint long after all the players are retired. Consider a team like the St. Louis Cardinals. In a five-year period in the 1940s, led by Stan Musial, the Cardinals averaged more than 100 wins a season and won three championships. According to my model, roughly 20 percent of 80-year-old male Cardinals fans today would either support another team or not be a baseball fan if not for Musial and his teammates’ epic run. …
I am obsessed with the Mets and this obsession, I suspect, plays a large part in my persistent disappointment with adult life. The Mets of the Dwight Gooden-Darryl Strawberry era hooked me as a boy, dangling in front of me the diving plays of Keith Hernandez at first, the dramatic escapes of Jesse Orosco on the mound and the surprising power of Howard Johnson at third. I assumed that being a Mets fan meant a lifetime of pennant races and championships. But after I became an adult, the Mets delivered more losses than wins and no additional championships.
The data shows that if I had just been born 10 years earlier or 10 years later, I would be significantly less likely to be in this mess. I could be out celebrating Derek Jeter’s farewell tour, instead of lying by my radio, listening to another Mets loss, clutching my Rey Ordóñez-signed mitt.
You could say this is my fault and nothing to complain about. I am a grown man and can choose whatever baseball team I’d like. But data analysis makes it clear that fandom is highly influenced by events in our childhood. If something captures us in our formative years, it often has us hooked for life.
Students: Read the entire article, then tell us …
— Do you think you or people you know are “hooked for life” on a team or other interest like a musician, writer or actor? If so, why?
— Have family members helped you get into something you are passionate about? If so, what?
— Do you identify with Mr. Stephens-Davidowitz’s descriptions of his baseball fandom? Does he remind you of anyone you know who roots for the same or another team?
— How do people bond over shared interest in a team or other pursuit?
Students 13 and older are invited to comment below. Please use only your first name. For privacy policy reasons, we will not publish student comments that include a last name.
SHANNON DOYNE
April 22, 2014, 5:05 am
From http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/