Sports Fans (Good, Bad and Ugly)

I had to post something today other than the Virginia Tech massacre. I will pray for those folks, the lost, and even the troubled young man, but as mentioned in my latest post, dwelling on this and continuing to plaster this kind of event all over the media is wrong
(see http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070419/ap_on_re_us/okla__bombing_anniversary) for what not to do, even 12 years later). Leave these things alone, get every school in the country to commit to a PLAN for this, and move on.

With all the sadness, check this out for a good laugh:
http://www.czabe.com/mediaclips/index.shtml?a=showclip&id=735

I wanted to touch on a subject today that burns my ass every year. The terrible fans of the sporting world. Sure, every team has its great fan base, the die-hards, the guys that live and die with every play, pass, hit, tackle, etc.....but every team also has the shit-bag fans that act as if they could have made every play and called every shot better than the guys making millions. Unfortunately, some teams have many more than others (Chicago is full of them, Oakland, Philly, NY, and the list goes on).

I'll start with NY, mainly because evidence of this is very fresh in the minds of anyone that follows baseball. Even the novice baseball fan knows who Alex Rodriguez is....and that he makes $500 trillion dollars a year (actually roughly $27.7 million this year) to play for the Yankees. Now I have seen this first hand, so my opinion sticks on the wall like pancake mix, but Yankee fans suck. The vast majority of these morons know the game well, more than most fan bases nationwide as a matter of fact, but where the hell do they get off boo-ing one of the best players in the game for more than a decade??? They don't pay his salary, A-Rod didn't ask for more cash when he was traded from Texas, he simply wanted to play for a contender, for that chance at a ring. When I saw the Yanks play last year, (by the way, every Yankee fan should feel privileged to see games at that park, it's old sure...but what a feeling when you walk in, just like Lambeau for us Packer Backers, more history than any other park ANYWHERE, and I hate the Yanks, so it means a lot) and they lost to the Mariners. It was a great game though, Jeter making a running play in the hole and throwing off the jump as only he does so very well, a few long HR's, and a close finish. (This reminds me...Tuosto if you are reading this, call Tony (Sal Fasano's long lost brother minus the stache, and tell him he owes me a round of golf, and I will collect)

What pissed me off was that they boo-ed A-Rod every time he came to the plate, and after he batted, even when he got a hit. This boo-ing still happend all last year and even in the playoffs. Guess what??? A-Rod hit .290 had 35 HR's and 120+ RBI's and he stole 15 bases last year. IF that's not good enough in NY, send him to Milwaukee, we'll give you Gorman Thomas, Kevin Mench, $10Million in cash, and 5000 pounds of brats (with kraut) for him today, and we will never boo him and his piles of money.

What makes this all worse?? A-Rod is off to the best start in Yankee history....yep that's right kids...better than the Babe, the Mick, Joey D, Reggie, and any other Yank you can think of. He has 9 HR's in 13 games and 23 RBI's. If not for him, the Yanks would have 2 wins. Wake up New York, this guy is your only ticket to the dance these days. Your owner spends $200 Million a year on a line-up and you complain that it includes one of the best players in baseball, who's still the best baller on your entire roster.....grow up already, you won't have 27 titles anytime soon anyways!

Moving closer to home....ahhh Chicago. Love the city, it's not NY, but the next best thing. Food, drink, the lake, sports, great newspapers, and yet they still want to come to WI every weekend when the sun shines.....(makes you wonder just how great WI is, and we'll get to that).

Loving the city of Chicago as I do...I could git two turds about the people, mainly the sports fans. Now I know some of these folks personally, so I have a pretty solid opinion, but don't want to bird walk too far. I only cannot stand these folks when it comes to their Sox, Cubs, Bears, and Bulls (I could keep the Bulls out, but I am still bitter about the Jordan days...the guy was the best, no doubt, no argument, but the bandwagon was so full those 6-10 years that Mayor Daly was having to cut trees down in Grant Park to keep them all in one place. Look for a ticket to a Bulls game now, no problem, and they are pretty tough).

Bears fans...wow. They are horrible and even the good ones (my good buddy Jorge is pretty solid about being realistic) fall off the rocker now and again. Last year (ahh that hurts coming in second place, first loser, getting beat on, etc) is still fresh in my mind, and I know that all those Super Bowl Shuffling douche-bags were really sore after the Colts ran into the sunset. Now I don't dislike the Bears all that much, despite my love for the Pack, but cripes!!! Bears fans are as fickle as it gets. Soldier Field is nice now, and you could still get a ticket when the club was 8-0, and I'd bet you could get one even later than that without paying more than face value. In the last 10 years the Bears have had two solid teams, neither with an offense, that made it to the playoffs, and didn't seal the deal. Last year's team being the best of the two, was still not as good as the top 4 teams in the AFC. I'd have bet the farm on the AFC regardless of which team had gone (Pats, Chargers, Ravens, Colts). What's nice to know is that the Pack whipped that butt to end the year, and with key players making it clear that the organization sucked, leaving, and not caring if they sit out, the Bears will not be nearly as dominant, especially with Rex (Mr. 4TD's one week and 6 weeks off) as their QB. In all fairness though, the organization is junk. The owners have plagued that team for years. Now that they have a good coach, see if the folks of Chicago can dig up a new and improved ownership....cuz they WON'T win a ring with the ones in house now!

Staying in the windy City, but heading north....you have Cubs fans. Now, tickets are always sold, house is full, and the house is one of the best left. However, half of the assholes at Wrigley never see more than 3 innings of play. These pricks are too busy talking on their cell phones, typing on blackberry's, and worrying about what designer jeans they got on Michigan Ave the week before. It's a damn fashion/vanity palooza. I would wager that Stever Bartman knows more about Cubs baseball (and catches as well as many) than 80% of the folks that frequent Wrigley. Any team/fan base, that bashes a guy for doing WHAT EVERY OTHER FAN WOULD HAVE DONE TO A BALL COMING TOWARS THE STANDS, is lost and confused. They had to protect this guy at his home for weeks, for fear that one of Chicago's finest fans would jeopardize his health, physically...and when you really look back...the Cubs had no shot. Gonzalez booted a routine play at short, and they would have lost anyway. Will the Cubs ever win again....they may, but spending tons of cash on Soriano was the trick, the Brewers will win more games than the Cubs yet again this year and pay the team 50% less.

I won't touch on the WhiteSox at all....their fan base is so bad that the only city that would claim worse is Oakland, and for some reason those assholes are proud of the fact that they suck. Hell if Oakland's football fans shared "Comisky"with WhiteSox fans on the same day, the city of Chicago's literacy rate would drop farther than George Bush's presidency rating in a matter of hours, the local jails would be full, and illegal drug sales would sore past anything Nancy Reagan every imagined possible. Any place you go where fans run onto the field to abuse players, umpires, etc is junk. Making it worse, the Tribune tried to talk past these instances by stating that those fans "were not your typical WhiteSox fans". Really?? Seems to me they sat in some nice seats, next to people that appeared to be very similar in dress and socioeconomic status....and if you look around the stadium, you see a lot of the same...drunk, tactless, and poor sport fans.

We can skip Oakland (see above).
Philly, well see above (minus the fact that they actually know the game (football and baseball) and they always fill the stands).

I have touched on my love for the Packers...and I also follow the Crew and the Bucks, Warriors (MU), Badgers, etc. I will however start by ensuring that you know the Bucks suck. Buck fans in general suck. I think the NBA tried to get a second team in Chicago and just aimed to high. I cannot defend it, nor understand it, but Herby Kohl needs to sell that team to someone that knows a bit more about hoops.

College sports I have eluded so far, but if you can find me a better set of fans that UW has for football, and hoops, I'll be shocked. There are many on the same levels (ACC hoopsters have a solid gripe, and are probably better based on tradition, UT, FSU, Florida, etc for football all close, etc) but none that really surpass. Three years in a row SI has named Madison's campus as the best sports campus in the land, and if you have been, you know why. If you haven't, start saving for tickets to the UW/Michigan game this fall, you could spend $500 on tow tickets and not have spent too much, trust me. 80,000 fans, packed tight as hotdogs, screaming, waving and having the time of their lives. (If you haven't see the wave done in Madison, you haven't see the wave ever...slow motion, fast motion, reversed, and in tandem from one section to the opposite section, all so well done you'd think it was rehearsed weekly). Badger fans travel well too....they have purchased tickets for every bowl game, tourney games etc as well as any base in the country, and even when they lose, they still have a great time to finish off the weekend

Marquette, although much smaller, and in building mode thanks to savior Wade, is working very hard to create a similar tradition. I went to MU and when I was there we had three-four sell-outs a year, always the ESPN games on TV. Now a sell-out is much more frequent, and the yellow shirts are EVERYWHERE. Hopefully winning becomes the norm, and this tradition makes its way to the spotlight more in the Big East.

Packer fans....ahh what a group we are. Cheeseheads, Packer Backers, whatever you want to call us...we are the best sports fans there are. Losing seasons don't lose fans, Lambeau is always packed. Tailgating was invented in Green Bay, and if Lambeau held 20,000 more seats, they would be full, as soon as the last brat/bbq, and beer was finished in the parking lot. We have embraced a quarterback that others didn't give a chance, who has led us to the title, and who has made us go nuts in our living rooms, all while securing himself in history as one of the best of all time, ever. When you go to a game, and you hear his name announced, and he runs onto the field, you can literally feel the love....fans here LOVE our players, and Green Bay, as a city owns them. No sporting franchise in history has what GB has....ownership of its team. The Packers will never move, and no decision made in the organization is made without the major shareholders (the city of GB). Something that unique makes the fan base cherish the team, and truly respect what it provides that city, this state, and these people. There's a reason why you have to wait 61.6 years to get season tickets in GB....and it's simply because our fans are the best there are!

Obviously this blog represents my opinions, and any fan has similar feelings about their respective team, but claiming that your team's fan base is better than those in GB is really tough to swallow. New England's fans are solid, their ticket sales are great, their organization highly respected, and the successes recently all show great things.....and Buffalo, man those folks love their Bills and make it to games in 20 feet of snow....but it's not the same. It's just not the same.

At the end of the day....as a fan, you just hope that your teams following doesn't fall into the band-wagoner, drunken moron, law breaking categories. Fan bases can change...but the good fans have to take a stand, buy tickets, raise awareness, and keep out the garbage. For many teams out there this will take major change (removing Al Davis in Oakland, moving the Sox out of the South side of Chicago, banning cell phones at Wrigley, etc) but it can be done. Use GB as an example...and do your best to keep close......even if you are close, you are doing very very well!