born in 80'...hard to pin point when I started but I was a huge baseball fan in the mid 80s....Mike Schmit (Phillies 3rd baseman) and D. Strawberry were my sports idols back then.
I grew up with my dad loving the sixers (we're from Philly) with Dr J, Moses and Mo cheeks....I knew of all those guys like MJ, Bird, Magic, Barkley (on the sixers) when they were playing etc. I also remember all the talk about Buddy Ryan, when Randall Cunningham first came on...and how legendary Reggie White and the Eagles D was on the field...I saw them play a ton of times.
I probably didn't pay actual attention to full seasons until about 88 or 89 when I became an NFL stan and I pretty much learned the rules to the NFL through street ballwith my turbo nurf and unlimited rounds of Nintendo Tecmo Bowl.
And I knew sports better back then because of Sports Cards....if you were into it seriously...you knew everyone, their stats, who they played for, who they were traded to etc etc. To this day I pretty much remember every player in the NFL and NBA who had any type of rep starting back to about 1989.