At the age of eight, I enjoyed being in school plays and funny things. I loved cartoons, especially off-the-wall ones like Heckle & Jeckle. I adored H.R. Pufnstuf, without knowing a thing about the obvious drug references. My childhood bedroom door was covered in silly and gross Wacky Package stickers. I wrote silly little plays and dialogues. And when my Dad asked me if I wanted to play Little League Baseball, I said no.

At the age of nine, I said yes to baseball after hearing so often about how I had broken my father's heart the year before.

My team was the Brewers and I was a quick learner who played second base and was the best fielder on the team. While I struggled hitting, I was proud of the respect I gained for being able to catch and throw a ball. In the eight- and nine-year-old division, we somehow managed to finish first and make it to a regional playoff game.

It was a wonderful experience. Until my last at-bat. The first game we played in the playoffs we got wiped out and I couldn't hit the ball for the life of me. I was very frustrated when I went to bat for the last time in a game we were losing 20-4, when my dad – one of the team's coaches – called me over where he was coaching first base. “If you don't hit the ball this time,” he said, somberly. “I don't think I'm going to coach you next year.” Tearfully I made my way to the plate, and by some miracle I hit a weak grounder to second base. I was out, but I had made my dad proud. And my entire identity changed in that moment.

Baseball and sports became my entire life. I played basketball, soccer and football. I became an avid boxing fan and studied the history of the sport with far more intensity then I ever had studied a school subject. From morning to night, sports was my life. It was my identity and remained so for a long time.

I achieved minor success in baseball as time went on and I learned to hit. I made a couple all-star teams and played some in high school. I made my dad proud a few times, as sports was our sole way of communicating. Despite being of average size and athletic ability, it was constantly inferred that I would play in the Major Leagues one day. I was never pushed to go to college, I was pushed to play in the Major Leagues.

By the time my career ended at the age of 16, I dreaded getting on the field and had the yips so badly I could barely play catch. When sports ended for me, so did my enthusiasm for everything. If I couldn't make my dad proud by playing in the Big Leagues, what was the point of anything? It took nearly two decades to find my identity again.

And that's why grown men are screaming for professional sports to return despite the worst pandemic in generations. Even as the Florida Marlins announced that more than a dozen players and coaches were infected with COVID-19, some men are demanding they return.

There is clarity in my vision of these men. The toxic masculinity that caused them to stop growing as humans is buried in sports, and emotions that should have been understood by maturity were given over to sports. This is why you see grown men playing softball with far too much passion, or being literally devastated by a pro team's defeat, or attacking an umpire for making a bad call for their kid and why sports web sites can be toxic hellholes of angry men.

This is why you see some grown men demanding a pro sports return at the worst possible time. I know these men because i was one of them. Sports is all they are, it's their identity and it's how they have learned to emote. And a pandemic is not enough of an excuse to take it away from them.

--WKW