Not too many people know it, but I’m a huge sports fan. More specifically, I’m a huge fair-weather sports fan. To be even more precise, I don’t really follow sports at all.

Not, at least, until the local team is peaking into the postseason. Then I make my move and jump the shark. Or bandwagon, if you prefer.

It all happens when I see a blurb in the paper, or on TV, which alerts me to the fact that:

1. There actually is a local team.

2. They are pretty darn good right now.

3. There is suddenly an opportunity to further postpone household chores for upwards of another month.

I’m not looking for pity when I state this, but it’s hard to be a fair-weather fan. There’s all that catching up with players’ names for one thing. They’ve completely changed them since the last Bush administration. I quickly pick up on the pitcher’s, goalie’s, or quarterback’s name and build on that with some of the other star players. But there’s no way I’m going to learn the nom de guerre of whoever else is wandering around down on the field before the postseason closes and I go dormant again.

Also difficult for us fair-weather fans is that we don’t know any of the athletes’ personal backstories to soak up that part of the sports drama. Like the ones where the player was great and then became washed up but is now back again to reclaim their former glory. Or those inspiring misfit zero-to-hero stories and their modern livestock form, goat-to-G.O.A.T.

But by far, the most challenging thing for a fair-weather fan is dealing with non-fair-weather fans who find our particular brand of apathy unfathomable. Not only do I not know the cleanup hitter’s batting average from their rookie season, or the last time the team won the Superevent, but I can’t even pick out the team’s mascot in a post-game-victory-party-gone-bad perp lineup.

As a major fair-weather fan, I’ve noticed that my vocabulary and catch phrases change in the postseason. My usual “Hi, how was your weekend?” morphs into “Did you see the game last night? Wasn’t that amazing?” Occasionally, fully formed insights come out of my mouth that almost sound like I know what I’m talking about. “I’m not sure they made the right trade for Tyson-Smidgeons in the off-season;” or “They’re getting too predictable with their tight end shift on third down.”

Sometimes I even speculate as to how I would have performed in a particular situation. “Could have caught that with both hands tied behind my back!” This despite negative field temperatures, an underthrown pass, and being surrounded by half the defense. And both hands tied behind my back.

On a good day, I apparently can pull out direct quotes from classic sports movies. “He’s looking awful good!” (“Heaven Can Wait”) or, “On any given Sunday, you’re gonna win or you’re gonna lose.” (“Any Given Sunday”), or, “No one likes a tattletale, Danny!” (“Caddyshack”). This last one applies only if I’m talking to a Danny who is ratting someone out.

One quirk about being a big-time fair-weather fan is that I will sometimes start rooting for the other team. Not that often mind you, but it does happen. Usually it’s when they are down by so many points that hopelessness is creeping in and grown men or women on the pitch are looking desperately sad. And that’s contagious.

So I start thinking that it wouldn’t be so very bad if they scored a touchdown or two, or maybe sneak in a grand slam or hat trick, or a long series of successful sequential penalty kicks. Just until they catch up. But not enough to where they get a real adrenaline rush or start thinking that “Hey … we could actually win this thing!!”

When these rare moments of team-switching strike, I notice that it irks non-fair-weather fans. I don’t usually use the word “irk” in polite conversation but I think it applies here. Non-fair-weather fans get irked if all of a sudden you start cheering for a team who you were — just moments ago — cheering against. In fact, if I’m any kind of judge of facial expressions, body language, and common uses of finger positions, I’d say some non-fair-weather fans even become “vexed.”

Anyway, so here we are once again in the middle of the postseason. The locals have done well and I’m in full fair-weather fan support mode. The next big game is this weekend, excitement is building, and I can’t wait!

Or can I.

D.W. Palmer is a humorist from West Norriton and writes about the lighter side of the human experience. He is currently on the lookout for new reasons to postpone chores.