I understand the social importance of sports. The theory of it, at least.

Sports are a modern iteration of our historical battles and territorial scuffles. A way to tribe-up and compete, with slightly less bloodshed and grunting and blind group-ism than you would have had a few thousand years ago. Slightly less.

What I don’t get is the interest in obsessing over something that’s so focused on constructing an artificial ‘us’ and ‘them’ from one of the most unimportant attributes a person can possess: their geographic location.

Like height or penis-length or the color of your skin, the place you’re born is one of the least brag-worthy things you could fixate on and define yourself by. You didn’t do a bunch of push-ups to get taller, and you didn’t work real hard in the womb to be born in Wisconsin.

As a result, rooting for a team of adults playing games — and taking those games so seriously, which are the same games children play for fun, by the way — as they represent your geographic region is the equivalent, in my mind, of cheering on a collection of grown men competing in tournament-level Tetris for the honor of their height class. “Go 5’10”ers! Crush those 5’11” bastards! Rotate! No, rotate left! Yeah! Drop the line! YES! TETRIS!”

The crowd goes wild.