My not so brief History as a Fan

Padres Baseball has often been difficult to watch this year, and I don’t just mean from the quality of play.  The saga of Fox Sports San Diego not being available for Time Warner or AT&T U-Verse subscribers is well told and documented.  Personally, I made the switch to DirecTV at the beginning of the season upon discovering it was available to me.  Earlier today, it was reported that Tim Sullivan of UT San Diego was looking for people, like me, who had made the switch. I had a quick interview with him, and my name appeared in the UT  One of the questions asked was if watching Padres baseball was important to me.  As a lifelong fan, naturally, it was.  However, I started thinking- how many games do I actually get to watch? When did actually WATCHING the games become important to me?