“Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sports, the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat,” was the opening line of “ABC’s Wide World of Sports, which illustrated the agony with ski jumper falling off the side of the ski jump hill.

I watched the show regularly in the late 60s and early 70s because I was – and continued to be – an avid sports fan. But Is it just me or have sports much less interesting and engaging in this year of COVID?

That’s the question that comes to mind as I ponder today’s #stampofthedayday, a 4-cent stamp, issued in February 1960, to honor the 1960 Winter Olympic Games, which ran from February 18 to February 29, 1960. These were the first Olympics to be held in the US since 1932 when the winter games were held in Lake Placid and the summer games were held in Lox Angeles.

Like most Americans, I usually watch the Olympics but don’t follow the Olympic sports between the games. And like many Americans, I’ve been bemused by some of the sports in the winter Olympics.

The biathlon – a combination cross-country ski race and shooting competition – always struck me as both oddly dangerous because it offered such an intriguing option for slowing down the person ahead of you.

Curling, which I first heard about in the mid 1980s, when my brother and sister-in-law moved to Petersham in central Massachusetts and were invited to visit the local curling club, seems utterly bizarre.

The luge and bobsled seem insane. And ice skating – particularly ice dancing – has always seemed like the oddest mix of extraordinary athleticism (particularly to someone who has never been able to skate without extreme pain in my feet) and unbelievably kitschy taste. I remember, for example, watching the Israeli ice dancing team skate to Hava Nagilah and wondering if this actually was happening or if it was a Saturday Night Live parody.

In contrast to the Olympics, which are a once-in-every-four years event, I’ve been a pretty avid follower of other sports since I was a kid. Growing up outside New York in the mid-to-late late 60s, I eschewed the Yankees and Giants and instead rooted for the Mets and Jets, as well as the Knicks, and, to a lesser extent, the Rangers. This meant I got to experience the magic of 1969-1970, when the Jets, Mets, and Knicks all unexpectedly won championships.

After moving to Boston in 1980, my allegiances shifted. I was an avid follower of the great mid-80s Celtics teams. In 1986, I unhesitatingly cast my lot with the Red Sox over the Mets, which meant I got to learn firsthand about the suffering that came with being a Red Sox fan (on the night my nephew Eli was born, no less!). I relearned that lesson in 2003 but got to experience the joy in 2004 when the Curse of the Bambino finally ended. Indeed, this millennium began with the pleasure of multiple championships won this century by the Red Sox and Patriots and single championships won by the Celtics and the Bruins (who I don’t follow closely).

And while I wasn’t a soccer player or fan growing up, my long, but ultimately ill-fated engagement with the New England Over-the-Hill Soccer League, where I played goalies for over a decade, gave me an appreciation for the game that helped me see the men’s and women’s World Cups in a different and more appreciative light.

But during the pandemic, I’ve found it hard to get very interested in sports. Maybe it’s because the lack of fans makes the games surreal. Maybe it’s because the pandemic has made me consider what’s important and, in doing so, underscored the fundamental absurdity of rooting for professional sports teams (or major college sports programs).

I’m reminded of an advertisement I once saw for a T-shirt said something like “Large men wearing shirts with my city’s name on them are better than large men wearing shirts with your city’s name on them.” I mean in the middle of an existential moment, who really cares about which team wins a series of basketball games held in a bubble in Disney World.

I do miss playing sports. I miss the camaraderie. I miss the ways that competition can sometimes bring out the best of us, individually and collectively. On the other hand, I don’t miss the ways that sports often bring out the worst of us, again both individually and collectively.

But I have not really been following the shortened and strange professional baseball, football, and basketball seasons. I haven’t given it up completely. I do quickly look at the sports sections on the Globe’s website, and sometimes on the websites of the Times and Post as well.

And here in Massachusetts they’re saying that by early April, when the baseball season starts, Fenway Park will be open, but only at one quarter capacity (about 9,300 people).

I wonder, what it will be like? Or, more accurately, I wonder if, at some point, it will be fun to again sit with friends and cheer heartily for a bunch of younger men wearing shirts that say Boston on them, particularly when they’re playing a team full of people wearing shirts that say New York on them.

I suspect I will, even though, as another T-shirt says, I’ll basically be saying,

“Yay sports!
Run really fast.
Get the points.
Do stuff with the ball.”

Hopefully, I’ll get to find out sooner rather than later.

Be well, stay safe, run really fast and do stuff with the ball, fight for justice, and work for peace.