Fan of the fanatics | Off the Record

I didn't grow up around sports fans. Now, I'm surrounded by them.

My best friend, Manhattan Jake, is a sports fan - from baseball to Formula 1. I married a true sports fanatic. Baseball, tennis, golf, college basketball, Little League World Series - you name it, he watches it. I gave birth to an athlete and sports fan. She, in turn, married a sports fan.

So you see, they are, like nature, everywhere in my life. And, I love them, deeply with all my heart but I just don't feel the love when it comes to sports. And, I've tried. Lord knows I've tried but, truth be told, for the most part, I don't care what individuals or teams do or don't do with a ball, bat, racquet or club but I do care about my family so I have become a fan of sports stories. I guess that makes me a peripheral sports fan.

OK so now, here we are hot into the Fédération Internationale de Football Association World Cup. Again, not my thing. I get the very (very, very) basics of the game - kick the ball down the field and get it past the goalie to score - but I don't know the all rules and regulations or the teams or players, ours or theirs. But, because not just my family but everyone else, everywhere I go is all about the games, I have watched parts of some of them. I will admit I enjoyed the speed of the sport and seeing the prowess of the athletes, but what I have enjoyed more than anything are the stories about the fanatics.

From the large crowd of singing and dancing Ecuadorian fans who gathered at the famed "Rocky" steps in Philadelphia and draped the iconic Rocky Balboa statue in a massive Ecuador jersey to the Uzbekistan fans wearing full armor as they trotted through Houston on horseback - they've been delightful.

Then there were the hundreds of screaming Norway fans who descended on Times Square surprising the "ommmm" out of a group of sunrise yoga class attendees. Upon discovering what they'd interrupted, many of the Norway fans joined the yoga group in various yoga poses.

And then there were the Scottish fans, known collectively as the Tartan Army, who marched through the streets of Beantown playing bagpipes on the way to a Red Sox game. Major League Baseball reported that more than 10,000 of them packed the stands and the bars for the Boston Red Sox game against the Texas Rangers that day.

The day before these fans pretty much drank Boston out of beer after their team's win over Haiti. The taproom for Samuel Adams reported selling more than 4,000 pints of Boston Lager in a four-day span, emptying nearly 90 kegs. Other local bars ran out of iconic Scottish imports like Tennent's, with fans reportedly consuming up to four times the amount of alcohol normally sold during major holiday weekends like Independence Day. Apparently local beer distributors had to scramble delivery trucks to keep local pubs from going completely dry. I don't even like beer, but I'm ready to party with the Scots.

But even more than the fan stories, it's the international fan comments on various social media platforms that have tickled my quintessentially American funny bone.

Regarding our food, our international guests have declared Taco Bell the "Holy Land" and given Waffle House a "10/10." I don't agree with them about either, but I love the love. Other funny fan food comments have included: "Why did no one tell me ranch sauce is like crack? EUROPE WE NEED RANCH ASAP," "When we found out that ‘bottomless' chips and salsa didn't refer to anything about our butts, and it meant all you can eat - wow, we don't have that," "The most ‘Merican thing of all … wrapping things in bacon and dipping them in ranch" and "Nobody warned me that American portion sizes are actually a threat to your health. I ordered a medium coffee and received what my country would classify as a bucket."

Speaking of size, foreign FIFA fans can't stop marveling at the magnitude of things in America from food portions to car sizes but especially the size of the country: "I came for football and accidentally got a geography lesson. The country is HUGE," "The USA is massive and chaotic, but that's part of the charm," "How absurdly big everything is. You look at a map and think you can just drive to another city, then six hours later you are still in the same state" and along the same line, "Everyone's been friendly, but your distances are basically side quests."

Their general observations about Americans - "You aren't really American if you can't have a conversation about the weather" and "I'm not trying to be offensive at all - so far, every American I've met has been incredibly friendly - but man … you guys are loud" - are so spot on you gotta grin.

There's also the shock and awe they express that our homeless people are far more "energetic" than they are accustomed to; the "insane amount of trust" we have handing our credit cards over to strangers to pay for things; and our "amazing" (in a good way) stadiums and equally as "amazing" traffic (in a bad way).

There have also been bunches of comments on Americans that have touched my heart and given me hope including: "Very diverse (at least in California) and no one treats you as a ‘foreigner' if you are not white. You really don't feel like an outsider as a person of color, which is really nice. As a foreigner, I truly don't think I've ever felt so accepted anywhere else I've been so far. This has been such a wholesome experience" and "The U.S. government is completely different than most locals." (Thank God.)

And, as one fan so aptly put it, "The World Cup is just the US having a giant sleepover with the cousins we never see because our parents hate each other."

Yeah, we may not now your name, your language or (sadly) basic world history and our "parents" may be in a to-the-death fight, but by gosh and golly you're not leaving the sleepover without at least half a dozen people telling you to "be safe" and to "come back again real soon" as well as reminding you to pack that ranch "sauce" in your checked bags because TSA will confiscate the bottles and buckets of it from your carry-on bags for sure.

Copyright 2026 Tribune Content Agency. All Rights Reserved.