ZomZom, I completely understand why you don’t get enthusiasium about sports, but now you are reaching a bit. “Cheering for criminals?” Come on. The American public is a fickle beast and will tear their heroes down faster than they raise them.
I have to think that such massive displays of collective enthusiasm are better directed towards something insignificant and harmless than “kill the infadels” or “death to America”.
(Checks username)
Pride at other’s accomplishments? No. Not really. I just want the poor buggers to win another cup in my lifetime!
You’re so silly. The ball was headed into the net.
I have Buffalo Bills season tickets. I was there during the 2-14 years and the four rides to the Superbowl. Right now they haven’t been in the playoffs in 12 years, let alone any chance of getting to the top.
Why do I go? For 8 weekends every fall being among 75,000 people screaming their heads off watching 11 guys try to kill one poor member of another group of 11 guys with a ball is damn fun. The group rush can be electric. I almost get the same rush when I barraling down the dragstrip by myself at 140 miles per hour, but I’m doing it in a community of others.
The guys on this pro team didn’t grow up here and most won’t stay when they are gone. But for a few years there are part of our community and we embrace them.
Silly and irrational? Sure, but it’s fun. I spend the rest of my time with family and work, this is one of my forms of entertainment.
One thing I do draw the line at. My friends know I’m famous for it, the “us” “we” and “them”. They won/lost. Not us or we.
“Hey… how bout that local… sports team?”
Now see, saying “they” just seems really weird to me. I’m hardly much of a sports fan, but if I go to a Mariners game and someone asks me how the game was, I’d say “we lost.” (being realistic here ^^) Now if they said “how’d they do” I’d respond in kind, “they lost.”
I guess to me, if you mention the team specificaly, then it’s they; but if you’re talking about the game itself, then it’s we. I’m not part of the team, but I’m part of the game.
<nitpick>
You missed a great game.
</nitpick>
/fingers in ears/
La-La-La I can’t hear you.
OK, my math was off a little, but it does seem like it’s been a dozen years.
Maybe some of us are just gluttons for punishment.
Golden State Warrior fan since 1974.
This is a big part of what being a fan is about. Following a sport and identifying with a team makes you part of that team’s community. The world, post industrial revolution, has a much reduced sense of community, it’s too easy for all of us to travel. We live in towns we don’t work in, we shop in towns we don’t live in, we move from town to town as it suits our whim.
Being a fan of a sports team gives you a sense of belonging.
There have been studies that indicate that people’s identification with sports teams is beneficial to their self-esteem - here’s one example:
Some folks may not need to identify themselves with a larger group, but IMHO they’re really few and far between. Tons o’ money is made by selling stuff that’s branded by celebrities, pop musicians have hordes of fans that can tell you all about their music and life stories, and people here refer to themselves as Dopers. Everyone wants to connect to something beyond themselves, and following sports is one way to do that. If “your” team is winning, then you take pride in their accomplishments. If they’re perennial losers, then that can be turned into a mark of honor as well, a la the Chicago Cubs.
Wow, I shouldn’t be surprised to see that I’ve got an uphill battle on this one.
First, I see a lot of you have confused my point about pride and sports teams with the act of enjoying sports as entertainment; that wasn’t my intent.
Second, my point about sports fans cheering for criminals wasn’t meant as an additional argument pulled from my posterior, but rather to bolster my argument that the need for prideful surrogates can result in blind admiration. See the book Pros and Cons for more.
Then perhaps you can illustrate with some concrete examples. Again, this started about the soccer team in Iraq. What were they doing that involves pride? How is it different then the enjoyment I take in the Red Sox? I celebrate with friends and strangers when they win, rag on Yankees fans when applicable, and commiserate when the lose. Is that pride? What’s wrong with that?
What is the proper way to show pride? What are you allowed to show pride in, in your opinion?
Let me try and combine the Iraqi soccer victory with my experience as a youth in 1970s Pittsburgh (quite bizarre, I admit.)
Both groups had a bit of a persecution/inferiority complex; I doubt there will be much resistance to that assertion.
Sport victories became a substitute for substantive success. The obvious downside is that the surrogate success masks a need for substantive success. To the extent that this blocks the desire to enact change that results in substantive success, the enjoyment of these victories, while wonderful in the short-run, hampers long-term successful strategies. I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to extrapolate this experience to individuals as well, regardless of whether they live in the rustbelt or a war-torn battlezone, or elsewhere.
Yes, this may come across as psychobabble, and I admit that to a healthy mind this is not a danger, but, collectively, we are blind to so much that our culture accepts without question. I only endeavor to bring up a point that to my mind, due to my unique circumstances, seems uniquely obvious.
So…if the Dodgers win the World Series, I’ll suddenly become a crappy teacher? (Hush, you.) I’ll take my $180 and blow it all on drugs? (I put $20 on the Dodgers to win back in November.)
The reason our poor youth are so prone to crime and drugs is because the wear Raiders gear?
Is that what you’re saying, bunky?
This is the kind of nonsense that cannot be differentiated from stuff like, “If one plays violent video games, it is a substitute for reality and those who play Doom/Half Life/whatever are going to start machine gunning people in the streets because people can’t distinguish between entertainment and reality.”
You really ought to go to a Nats or a Redskins game. Look around the good seats and you’ll see the elite of Washington, many of whom go nuts at these games. I work with a guy who once held a Very Senior position in the Executive Branch, and he’s about as rabid a Redskins fan as anyone could possibly find. The idea that finding pleasure in supporting a sports team has any kind of demonstrable link to failures in life is just bizarre, make-believe nonsense that says more about your prejudices than of life as it actually is. I would bet the converse would be true: people find happiness by doing things, not just watching them happen; and if sports is what floats your boat, chances are you’d find more pleasure by allowing an emotional attachment to your sport/team of choice, rather than dispassionately intaking whatever game might be on TV.
Are you familiar with the “No true Scotsman” fallacy? That is, if you say people who do X are Y, and they aren’t Y, then they can’t “really” be X? That’s pretty much what you’re doing.