For any Major League Baseball fan, opening day is like Christmas. We look forward to America’s favorite pastime each year because it is our favorite pastime. But what is it like to be a MLB fan in college?

If you come from a big city that has a local MLB team, you know how crazy and exciting this time of the year can get. But since Alabama doesn’t have a local team nearby, unless you classify the Atlanta Braves as our “home” team the excitement isn’t what we’ve come to expect over the years.

Being in a rural area for college changes the views on baseball. As fans, we don’t get to see the same amount of media attention that we would see if we were back at our home states because we don’t have a local team that represents our area. Without the media’s attention, MLB fans have to adapt.

We are limited to only one or two teams to call our “home” team. And as devoted as many of us are, it’s hard to fathom why other students aren’t as excited about opening weekend like we are when we’re used to the environment fueling our enthusiasm for the sport.

College changes the way we as fans think about baseball. We aren’t swaddled in a baseball environment like before, so we have to create our own. College strengthens the fan inside of us. It’s what sets apart a semi-fan from a true fan.

Since we are all apart of the University, we all have a loyalty to our sports programs. The same thing goes for each individual person and their favorite MLB team. It doesn’t matter how far away I may be from Philadelphia, I’m still a Phillies fan at heart, even if I have to work a little more as a fan to catch the games.

Being in college doesn’t mean that we can’t support our teams. What it does mean is that we can’t rely on the surrounding atmosphere that fans create to get into the spirit of the season. Baseball fans around the country know what it’s like to be a true fan and stick with their teams even when they are far away.

College doesn’t take away a fan’s loyalty to the program; it only heightens it because we don’t have any other teams to align ourselves with just because they are the local team. College strengthens the spirit of the baseball fan.

Sports columnist Thomas Boswell once said, “More than any other American sport, baseball creates the magnetic, addictive illusion that it can almost be understood.” This holds true for college students because even when we are in a MLB-free zone and aren’t surrounded by the large amount of fans, we can still connect and understand the game because college makes the fan.