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Permalink Reply by Mike S. on August 8, 2012 at 7:34am

As far as baseball goes, try out this book. It is a great read whether you are new to baseball or a die-hard fan. Watching Baseball Smarter

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Permalink Reply by Jack Bauer on August 8, 2012 at 7:38am

Just turn on sports talk radio or watch SportsCenter or ESPNNews a few times week.  You'll pick it up quick enough.

 

To be honest, most of my sports updates I get from "Mike & Mike in the Morning" on ESPN Radio.

 

JB

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Permalink Reply by J. on August 8, 2012 at 3:13pm

Honestly, the only sport I know more than a little about is football. Since football is only played August - February, there is a lot of time I don't rigorously follow sports. What you should do is subscribe to your local paper, and every morning go to the sports section, check standings, wins-losses, for all the teams. Take note of which teams are on streaks (wins or losses). Then do a brief skim of game reviews for your home team(s). Note what the paper says about which player is hot and who is in a slump. This will give you a full 85% of what is going to be talked about at work that day. Then just sit back and listen. Learn everything you can from these diehard fans. You can help direct the conversation by asking informed questions, such as:

"The Pirates have really been hot this season. Think they got a shot this year?" Someone following the Pirates will likely start going into weak outfields or which closer they need to play more often. That's how you learn.

I know this might seem a bit cynical, but it really works. Most of the time people are work are just parroting what they saw on ESPN or in the paper anyway.

Another way is to join an office fantasy league. The fantasy league rules explain what stats mean what and the opportunity to have to think critically about stats and players and trades is an easy (and fun!) way to learn a great deal about sports in little time.

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Permalink Reply by Jax on August 9, 2012 at 8:31am

Take a class at a local college or tech school. I took a coaching and refereeing class in college and even though I had followed football for years, it opened up so much more of the game. I realized that I really didn't know much at all. Once you walk through the rule books, learn offensive and defensive schemes, and actually try to call live action yourselves, you realize how hard it is and it gives you a great appreciation for the game.

The down side is that you realize the people talking at the water cooler really don't know much more than what's regurgitated on ESPN and quite often complain about plays that were actually called correctly.

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Permalink Reply by Betz on August 23, 2012 at 12:13pm

I'm a huge baseball fan (San Francisco Giants).  I would suggest you participate in sports forums (google prosportsdaily; they have a good forum), follow the teams on twitter/facebook/whatever social media you like, and watch the games as much as possible.  Before you know it, you'll be standing around complaining about your teams mediocre OBP and downright awful starting pitching WHIP. ;)

I would also suggest you learn the history of your favorite team.  Wikipedia is a great source for this.  You can learn about your team's great players, championships, great moments, etc.  It's a good primer.  Like any new hobby you take on, start small and move out from there.

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Permalink Reply by Edwin L. on August 31, 2012 at 11:58am

I was like you and didn't follow sports for most of my high school/tech school years... shortly after I got really into hockey and learned mostly from watching games as much as I could, then reading about it on the teams blog sites...Its a great obsession....

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