I think you’ve only been reading the posts of those who agree with you.
Can you explain in any coherent manner what this has to do with what I posted?
What if I have ownership stake in the team? Can I say “we” then? Do I get to cheer louder than someone else?
What about the Packers fans who actually DO own the team?
Common, you don’t root for a character in a book you identify with? You don’t feel a pang of honor and pride in Saving Private Ryan?
12 years ago I would have agreed with the OP. Then I was dragged to my first minor-league hockey game. I was an instant addict. 10 years ago I started getting season tickets. 6 years ago I joined the Booster Club. So I do take pride in “my” team’s accomplishments. Those young men work their butts (and feet) off for less money than my husband makes in a week. Why do I call them “my” team? Because what Booster Club does helps to make their lives more comfortable while they are here. Under the SPHL salary cap, players make an average of $350 a week. The clubs are allowed to furnish apartments for the players at no charge to them under league rules. Booster Clubs are allowed to furnish housekeeping items (dishes, kitchenware, bed linens, towels, etc.) for the apartments, which is what our fundraising provides. We provide snacks for the bus trip. Each player (if he wishes) has a Booster Club “sponsor” who provides him with a road bag of snacky stuff. We occasionally take our player to dinner. Some Booster Clubs (our is one, altho not all do) provide the visiting team with a hot meal after the game before they get on their bus. We try to make life in a strange town a bit more pleasant for these young men. In doing this we get to know them; they are no longer just players on skates.
Two years ago, our team won the league championship. Our Coach/General Manager bought replica championship ring keychains for the season ticket holders to thank us for our support.
I have made some lifelong friends going to hockey games. Yes, I sometimes paint my face during the playoffs. My SDMB name is in honor of the Cottonmouths. I own 8 game worn jerseys and I wear one to every game. I’m afraid to count the number of Snakes t-shirts I own - including the 11 from the blood drive they have sponsored every year. The teams’s annual Tip-A-Snake banquet raised 60,000 for the Children’s Miracle Network last year.
I’ve had a lot of fun being “stupid” and plan to continue. I already have my front row season ticket for next season.
Now that I have explained why I am “stupid”, let me say what I think is stupid. I do not and never will understand fans of one team who are actively rude and aggressive to fans of another team. Do you want your team to just skate around on the ice and play with themselves? Are you not capable of understanding that it takes more than one team to make up a league? Did it cross your mind that when I have travelled to your barn I have put money in your team’s pocket, the pockets of your concessionaires, and most likely a motel and a resturant or two? When I went to Knoxville for a playoff game two years ago, our group of fans had to have a policeman with us because of the horrible behavior of Knoxville fans. One supposedly adult man dumped a full beer over the head of a 12 year old girl while her mother’s back was turned, then claimed it was “an accident”. I think that kind of behavior is below stupid.
It may be “sub-retarted” for some one from a country who proclaims to be the country that is NUMBER ONE.
For a country that has been thrown into turmoil and can’t guarantee its own populas the simple things in life like healthcare, power, education, then the single unifying, joyful moment of a sports win is nothing to be sniffed at!
I seriously can’t, even for a moment, see how people can compare an Iraqi win to some Ameraicn team! Get a grip people!
OBVIOUSLY this Iraqi win is FAR more important then anyone who ever won a superbowl or anything else!
Shit I hate sport but this was a moment that joined Iraqis!
Unless it’s a tournament, players don’t compete against each other at blackjack. A player who takes the results of other players into account or tries to compete with other players is foolish and likely to make very bad decisions and lose lots of money.
Thanks! The Menil is a little gem & worth repeated visits.
I suspect the Menil team color would be Bohemian Black. After all, there was that day-long Marcel Duchamp seminar–for hard core fans only.
Given the history of most Houston sports franchises–we need something to cheer about.
Yeah, I never said nor implied the competition was among players. I’m puzzled how you got that idea in your head. Players trying to win money off the house is the competition to which I’m referring – not among the players, but players against the dealer.
Sure, but that’s clearly different to most sports fans.
SnakesCatLady - Awesome post and you certainly are not the type of fan that I had in mind when I opened the thread. You actually participate in the team’s well-being and are having a great time to boot.
Well, I think my real question is, why do you care? Either you have some interests and hobbies that others might consider “stupid” - in which case you should understand, if not agree with, the feelings of those who enjoy sports - or you don’t, in which case you get on with that whole Second Coming thing that’s been on your day planner for a few years.
My point isn’t the one you seem to be objecting to, that having an interest in sports is stupid. But rather, taking pride in a sports team as if to associate yourself with an accomplishment that you did not earn, is stupid.
So we can root for them, enjoy their accomplishments, celebrate when they win, commiserate when they lose, follow their every action, trade, and decision in mind-numbing detail, as long as we don’t take “pride” in their accomplishments? Got it, I’m fine with this.
“Baseball isn’t a matter of life or death, it’s more important then that.”
It’s tribal, we enjoy the highs and lows, it’s fun to be part of something bigger then yourself, to put yourself on the great stage that you can’t reach in your personal life. You might as well argue against the tides.
This bugs me as well, but mostly in the context of “my school has a better sports team than yours.” The reason why it bugs me is because the majority of people who do this after finding out where I went to college will continue to be dicks about where I went to school in relation to where they went to school at inopportune moments for what seems like the rest of eternity. What’s worse is that the logic of me having gotten into that school as well but choosing to go to another school because it had a better program in what I was originally interested in completely goes over their heads; it’s as if interest in the school’s football team is supposed to be the entirety of my interest in getting a four-year degree from that school. :rolleyes:
Now, I don’t hate sports fans, but I don’t quite understand the vitriol from some of them. I played sports in middle and high school, and I still don’t get the passion of some of these fans that turn into ridiculous in-group/out-group backbiting. It’s really just a game; there is no reason to ridicule, assault, or vandalize property in the name of your favorite team.
I generally agree with the OP, with the exception of local teams, like high school football. It’s sort of fun rooting for your county’s team to beat other county’s teams. At least all the players are actually from this county.
Stuff like NFL I don’t really understand, in what way to the Cleveland Browns represent Cleveland?
Well, considering my home teams (which are actually 120 miles distant) are the Nuggets, the Rockies, the Avalanche and the Broncos, I’d be tempted to agree with you. But we’ll see, we’ll see. Eventually, one of them may again bring glory on Denver and perhaps I’ll be able to feel the glow all the way out here on the prairie.
The Cleveland Browns might not be the best possible team to pick as your example, as they’ve done an impressive job of stocking the team with local athletes in the past few years (Brady Quinn, LeCharles Bentley, Joe Jurevicius, and Charlie Frye, to name a few).
However, I understand what you mean: The town of Green Bay has essentially poured their entire identity into a good ole’ boy from Mississippi who doesn’t even spend the winter up there.
The players themselves, however, don’t really matter. Countless sports columnists had chronicled that players themselves only occasionally identify with team rivalries. When Jamal Lewis was signed by the Browns after playing for rival Baltimore, he didn’t go through a magical transformation, and yet millions of people will go from reviling him to loving him, and vice versa.
The reason that the Browns represent Cleveland, Brett Favre represents Green Bay, or the Baltimore Ravens represent people of stunted intelligence and poor hygiene is because those people assign them to represent them. If you go into any bar in any of these towns, there will be several people who share the same, irrational fixation on these teams. An easy way for any (male) coming into a town to make friends is to join the cult of the local sports team.
When you have a sizable proportion of a population who says that they identify with something, it no longer requires a reason: it just is.
DING. You hit the nail on the head. This is what really bothers me, the unquestioning way that so many just accept the irrational because that’s the way it is. Because belonging is more important than being right. Because being us is so much more important than being them. Because I want to claim victory even though I just watched it from the couch.
There is no right or wrong here; it simply is. How would you have fans respond to you? This is the way people have bonded and established a community for generations. In the same way that I’m Jewish because my dad is Jewish, I’m a Red Sox fan because my dad is a Red Sox fan.
It’s not that we don’t question it, it’s that we don’t care.