1998 Yankees Diary: Darryl Strawberry’s Battle

Part of the allure of sports is how much we get emotionally involved. Day in and day out, week in and week out, we pour our heart and soul into our favorite teams, and we structure our lives to watch as many games as possible. Every Opening Day, people joke, “I’m ready to let a baseball team dictate my mood for the next six months,” but for many, it’s not a joke, it’s reality. “Fan” is short for “fanatic,” after all.

Every once in a while, however, reality breaks into our bubble, and reminds us that there are more important things than sports. Sometimes, those reminders are institutional, such as June’s smoky announcement that unprecedented climate disasters are becoming more and more…