# St. Louis fans you are not God's gift to baseball **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 23, 2006, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-louis-fans-you-are-not-gods-gift-to-baseball/365649 "2006-07-23T00:06:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BobT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e8cbc/32.png) [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2006, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-louis-fans-you-are-not-gods-gift-to-baseball/365649/1 "2006-07-23T00:06:24Z")
You know you can’t be “the best fans in baseball” if you keep saying it. And you keep acting like assholes in front of fans when visiting their parks. Just root for your team. Or go back to St. Louis. You are not the center of the baseball world. You are not perfect fans. You are just like everybody else. Deal with it. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2006, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-louis-fans-you-are-not-gods-gift-to-baseball/365649/2 "2006-07-23T00:29:55Z")
Fandom-envy? :dubious: Okay… ---
**Author:** ![Garfield226](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Garfield226](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Garfield226)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2006, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-louis-fans-you-are-not-gods-gift-to-baseball/365649/3 "2006-07-23T00:36:24Z")
Actually, God’s gift to baseball would be the team itself. We’re just the delightful little angel choir. Oh, and :rolleyes:. ---
**Author:** ![brianjedi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3be4f8/32.png) [@brianjedi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brianjedi)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2006, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-louis-fans-you-are-not-gods-gift-to-baseball/365649/4 "2006-07-23T00:47:50Z")
> [@Garfield226](#): > > Actually, God’s gift to baseball would be the team itself. We’re just the delightful little angel choir. > > Oh, and :rolleyes:. Amen. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2006, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-louis-fans-you-are-not-gods-gift-to-baseball/365649/5 "2006-07-23T01:20:29Z")
> [@BobT](#): > > You know you can’t be “the best fans in baseball” if you keep saying it. And you keep acting like assholes in front of fans when visiting their parks. Just root for your team. > > Or go back to St. Louis. > > You are not the center of the baseball world. > > You are not perfect fans. > > You are just like everybody else. > > Deal with it. Amen to _that_, my brother. As a Pirate and Steeler fan growing up in St. Louis in the 70’s and 80’s, I had to take a lot of shit off of St. Louis fans. When they come here to Pittsburgh, nobody gives them any trouble, as far as I’ve ever seen. Hell, the most obnoxious baseball fan I’ve seen in years was one cunt from St. Louis at a Cards at Pittsburgh game a couple years back. Like most St. Louis fans, he felt the best way to enjoy the game was to get shitfaced. He then proceeded to yell shit about the Pirates. Oh yeah, and Jack Buck sucked. ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2006, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-louis-fans-you-are-not-gods-gift-to-baseball/365649/6 "2006-07-23T04:55:19Z")
Back when Tony Gwynn was chasing his 3,000th hit, they kept a big Tony Gwynn hit counter in their stadium next to the Mark McGwire home run counter, or at least prominently displayed something like it during Padres games. When the Padres played there, the fans treated Tony Gwynn like he was born at home plate in St. Louis and had collected every single one of his hits in a Cardinals uniform. It was surreal. The only way you could tell the game was in St. Louis was that the Redbirds were wearing white. Nothing can erase that in my mind, not until the next guy reaches 3,000, anyway. That said, I would gladly go the rest of my life without spending another minute in the state of Missouri. As an aside: Don’t know much about Jack Buck, but every time I see Joe on TV I want to punch him in the face. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2006, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-louis-fans-you-are-not-gods-gift-to-baseball/365649/7 "2006-07-23T05:13:43Z")
> [@Hentor the Barbarian](#): > > Oh yeah, and Jack Buck sucked. Noooo. Say what you will about any fans anywhere, but please don’t bring Jack into it. I loved him. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2006, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-louis-fans-you-are-not-gods-gift-to-baseball/365649/8 "2006-07-23T06:54:58Z")
Can i ask what inspired this rant? Not having grown up in the US, i’m still catching up on years of missed baseball lore and legend. Who ever said that St. Louis had the best fans? Is this a common belief among Cardinals fans? Among baseball commentators? Where does this all come from? ---
**Author:** ![BobT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e8cbc/32.png) [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2006, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-louis-fans-you-are-not-gods-gift-to-baseball/365649/9 "2006-07-23T06:57:22Z")
St. Louis fans tell you that they are the best fans in baseball. The media has run with it a lot in recent years. My rant was inspired by having a group of St. Louis fans (transplants) sitting behind me at a Dodgers game Friday. They were a disgusting admixture of Southern California narcissism and Midwestern provincialism. They were a creation that God should have prevented from being created. ---
**Author:** ![Garfield226](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Garfield226](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Garfield226)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2006, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-louis-fans-you-are-not-gods-gift-to-baseball/365649/10 "2006-07-23T06:58:57Z")
I would say it was the California in 'em. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2006, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-louis-fans-you-are-not-gods-gift-to-baseball/365649/11 "2006-07-23T07:45:08Z")
> [@BobT](#): > > My rant was inspired by having a group of St. Louis fans (transplants) sitting behind me at a Dodgers game Friday. WTF? Transplants? They _live_ in LA? There’s your damn answer. They’re Dodgers fans (loud, dirty drunkards who arrive in the third and leave in the seventh), only dressed in red, and they’re high on smog like the rest of you. You can’t extrapolate that to Cardinals fans anywhere else, especially not St. Louis. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2006, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-louis-fans-you-are-not-gods-gift-to-baseball/365649/12 "2006-07-23T14:20:59Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > Noooo. > > Say what you will about any fans anywhere, but please don’t bring Jack into it. I loved him. Sorry, but I calls 'em like I sees 'em. He could hardly be troubled to learn the names of opposing team players. Everything was a “pop up to the first baseman” or a catch by “the center fielder.” And did you ever hear him call a football game??? In addition to him, you had to listen to Al Hrbosky or Mike Shannon. Jesus H.! > [@](#): > > St. Louis fans tell you that they are the best fans in baseball. But the underlying problem is that St. Louis has a real inferiority complex. They are a shitstain (a large one, to be sure) of a town in the midst of a bunch of cornfields, six hours from Chicago and five hours from Kansas City. Seriously, watching their news coverage was a joke, because in any national news story, they would try to insinuate themselves. The best example I could remember was a story in the mid 80’s about some famous mafia leader in New York City, and they come back from the story with something like “And right here in St. Louis, we have this numbers running operation…” So, in terms of baseball fans, you do have to give them credit for having huge attendance numbers for a long time, but they were no more knowledgable about the game than anyone else. And the attendance numbers probably come from the fact that for hundreds of miles around the place, there’s nothing else to do. Oh, they did put in that new NASCAR track in Southern Illinois. ---
**Author:** ![Moirai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/96bed5/32.png) [@Moirai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moirai)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2006, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-louis-fans-you-are-not-gods-gift-to-baseball/365649/13 "2006-07-23T15:14:07Z")
A friend of the family plays for the Cardinals, and I know that when he joined the team, he was very impressed with the fans and their, well, fanaticism. At least he was finally playing where people gave a shit! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2006, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-louis-fans-you-are-not-gods-gift-to-baseball/365649/14 "2006-07-23T15:28:09Z")
> [@Hentor the Barbarian](#): > > Seriously, watching their news coverage was a joke, because in any national news story, they would try to insinuate themselves. The best example I could remember was a story in the mid 80’s about some famous mafia leader in New York City, and they come back from the story with something like “And right here in St. Louis, we have this numbers running operation…” > > . You can see the same thing in virtually any smallish, isolated market. Happens here in OKC, happened in Shreveport, LA, happened in Amairillo, TX, happened even in Denver. Localism is important when you’re isolated and/or small. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2006, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-louis-fans-you-are-not-gods-gift-to-baseball/365649/15 "2006-07-23T15:29:43Z")
(Amairillo is the atmosphere directly above Amarillo, btw …) ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2006, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-louis-fans-you-are-not-gods-gift-to-baseball/365649/16 "2006-07-23T15:30:16Z")
> [@EJsGirl](#): > > A friend of the family plays for the Cardinals, and I know that when he joined the team, he was very impressed with the fans and their, well, fanaticism. At least he was finally playing where people gave a shit! 😉 You get the fanaticism, but even more so in many baseball cities. The players I have seen interviewed about do seem to believe that St Louis fans are passionate without being too rude and rowdy. In general die-hard Yankee & Red Sox fans are more passionate but also much ruder and regretfully will turn on their own players as well. Philly fans are downright vicious, but still incredibly passionate. Mets and Cubs fans have always had as much passion as Cardinal fans from what I have seen. I think it all boils down to Cardinal fans are very passionate and informed, but unlike other major Baseball cities, the Card fans are much nicer. Jim ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2006, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-louis-fans-you-are-not-gods-gift-to-baseball/365649/17 "2006-07-23T15:34:00Z")
> [@EJsGirl](#): > > At least he was finally playing where people gave a shit! 😉 I do envy them that. Pittsburgh fans are incredibly fanatic, if you are talking about football. Baseball, not so much. Good thing I’m passionate about both. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2006, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-louis-fans-you-are-not-gods-gift-to-baseball/365649/18 "2006-07-23T15:40:47Z")
> [@mhendo](#): > > Can i ask what inspired this rant? > > Not having grown up in the US, i’m still catching up on years of missed baseball lore and legend. > > Who ever said that St. Louis had the best fans? Is this a common belief among Cardinals fans? Among baseball commentators? > > Where does this all come from? I’ve been hearing this for years and years, actually. Most fans are convinced they’re the best fans, but it’s a belief remarkably prevalent in St. Louis and seems to be repeated by many baseball commentators and announcers. Having been in half the parks in the majors, I can tell you that all baseball fans are pretty much the same. Yankee fans do expect more of their team, but that’s a product of the team’s success; their standards were a lot lower in 1993 when the team had been awful for a long time. Red Sox fans are very loud and abrasive, but that’s more the way Bostonians talk, not really a product of being a sports fan. Sports fans in EVERY city think they are unique, that they love their teams more than fans from other cities, and know more about sports than other fans. They’re all wrong. The only difference with St. Louis fans is that for some reason a lot of people in the national media are repeating that particular myth. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2006, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-louis-fans-you-are-not-gods-gift-to-baseball/365649/19 "2006-07-23T15:46:57Z")
Astros fans, at least during weekday afternoon games, are all business execs and salesmen getting slowly wasted on weak beer. Made for some interesting cat calls. “Greg Luzinski! HEY! Greg Luzinski! You got faggot arms! Yeah, you!” (They especially seem to hate the Reds and Mets. 😉 ) ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2006, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-louis-fans-you-are-not-gods-gift-to-baseball/365649/20 "2006-07-23T16:12:28Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Sports fans in EVERY city think they are unique, that they love their teams more than fans from other cities, and know more about sports than other fans. I’m an Indians fan and I see no evidence that Indians fans are unique or great fans. And after 1995, when I walked up and bought tickets to the playoffs in Cincinnati, I haven’t had much respect for Cincy fans, either. I’m not much of a Reds fan, but I was cheering them on harder than most of the people in the ballpark. That’s sad. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-louis-fans-you-are-not-gods-gift-to-baseball/365649.md?page=2)