Tony Soprano explains why men love naming random baseball players

If you haven’t heard of Immaculate Grid, it’s time to emerge from your cave. Okay, that might be a little harsh. But if you’re an overt baseball fan, I’d be surprised if none of your friends or colleagues have yet to forward you the website for this addictive sports quiz.

The quiz is framed in a 3x3 tic-tac-toe matrix in which each box corresponds to an intersection of two categories (a team, and award, a career milestone), for which you fill the box with a player that corresponds to both categories.

In the six months since the game became public, the most common pairing has involved two teams for which you guess a player who played for both. Considering there are 435 combinations of two-team pairings, it might require you to tap into your mental rolodex of former players. For the first time in years, you find yourself revisiting the promising rookies who once graced your team’s yearbook cover or the seasoned veterans who you drafted to your earliest fantasy baseball teams.

By conjuring former players from your era of playing Triple Play on PS1 or rolling the dice for Strat-O-Matic, Immaculate Grid breathes a beautiful untapped trait that many American men waver from - nostalgia.

Nostalgia is a feeling that occurs when whimsically reflecting on a person or event from the past. When that memory transports you, you regain the sensory experience which you become classically conditioned to associate with your present self. You can be transported to your past via the melody of a Mister Softee truck, a perfume that grandma wore, or the intricate colors reminiscent of a childhood carousel.

But while nostalgia can provide us with warm feelings, there is a downside to nostalgia. Nostalgia - whose etymology has Greek roots for “pain” and “homesickness” - can open up the rabbit hole towards melancholy. Whether it’s an intangible yearning for childhood, an inability to escape a missed opportunity, a flashback to an unrequited love - the brief sensory benefit nostalgia provides could pale in comparison to its existential come-down of malaise. Going back in time can serve as unproductive and potentially harmful.

Men, especially in western culture, have a tough time addressing nostalgia. Feelings that derive from nostalgia and reflection can cause worrying and ruminating - inactions which, while universally human, skew feminine.

Whether subliminally or not, society has kept male emotions in check. Men are supposed keep heads down and moving forward. So at the peril of looking backwards, men are conditioned to think that remembrance is a dish best served repressed.

Given nostalgia is considered the antithesis to masculinity, it’s not surprising that Tony Soprano, one of the most archetypal alpha-males in television history, quipped this on the subject of reminiscing….

Within the context of the scene, Tony’s conscience is weighed by his recent murder and perhaps doesn’t want conversation to dig up anything about this grisly act. But independent of Tony’s situation, his brief pause and targeted “remember when” delivery portrays this broader aphorism as something most men (even us non-murdering type) can relate to.

In a scene straight from my Abbott & Costello imagination, I wonder if Tony would be hesitant to leave if Paulie Walnuts assuaged the tension by listing former players from Tony’s favorite team, the New York Jets. Johnny Johnson, Terence Mathis, Pat Leahy.

Clearly Tony doesn’t care to ruminate on past events, especially ones where his actions are tied to conflicting emotions, but talking about the past within the confines of sports evokes a different type of “remember when”.

Unlike life’s burdensome topics, sports' most basic nature is “play.” In its playful function, sports becomes a secure vehicle to address fun memories and stay away from those memories which can be too disturbing.

For men, talking about sports is this loophole, this “safe space” - a veiled masquerade towards expressing nostalgia. Sitting around a table doing nothing but rattling off former players' names brings men levity and this grounded sense of joy, as cemented by this viral tweet below.

Because the subject of sports is supposed to be light, names of yesteryear players are also meant to be light. Listing players isn’t about recalling legends, Hall of Famers, or even infamous players; Rather it’s about recounting inconsequential misfits and nomads whose impact isn’t as much on baseball history as it is on our personal history.

The silly, almost make-believe enterprise of sports fandom allows men to delve into roles from which society has deterred us away. Men are supposed to be hunters - we find something, use it, discard it, and move on. Women, on the other hand, are gathers - collectors, nurturers, and safe keepers. So when millions of men not only collect baseball cards as children, but preserve their binders and boxes into fatherhood and beyond, sports functions as our accomplice to “get away with” these seemingly feminine traits.

Collecting, reflecting, and reciting ballplayers' names is one of our most frivolous delights. The male adult version of jingling keys in front of a baby. When listing names we don’t need to reflect on the players abilities or any specific plays to feel warmth. The warmth comes from sharing a collective unconscious not just with our close friends, but that also millions of other men feel this non-jeopardized release of catharsis. Just by listing names.

For Yankee fans in their 30s: Luis Sojo, Ramiro Mendoza, Melky Cabrera

For Yankee fans in their 40s: Steve Sax, Danny Tartabull, Chuck Cary

Fans in their 50s will have witnessed over a thousand players compete for their team plus tens of thousands of players compete against their team.

If you’re playing this name-game with friends in person, you’ll likely receive smirks, snickers, and thoughts of “Oh my god…I forgot about that guy.” If you’re sharing names with friends via texting, you’ll likely receive an approving emoji or response of “HFS” or “What a name”.

Somehow with nostalgia’s overarching potential to cascade negative thoughts, listing athletes serves as a sieve for positive associations.

For nostalgia’s dark side that Tony Soprano worries about, there’s its welcoming, touching side conjured by musician Paul Simon. In his 1968 hit “Mrs. Robinson”, Simon sang Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio?

While the lyric alluded to the Hall-of-Famer’s heroism not just in the outfield but in the US Army, Simon, a lifelong Yankee fan, understood the powerful allusion of a ballplayer to signify his childhood. Simon’s sentimentality is at odds with Tony’s disgruntlement towards “remembering when”, but he could teach Tony a thing or two about sports being the safe turf on which to reminisce.

It’s a fun and shielded escape for men to use ballplayers as a means of reflection. Just like the myriad friends and acquaintances from our past lives may seem irrelevant to our present, the random ballplayers from your past are symbolic of those who, while they may not have left a vivid mark, are still a part of your life’s journey.

Joe DiMaggio is iconic, but for the merry sake of nostalgia, Dom and Vince will do just fine.