After watching and reading the rabid reactions of certain fans of the Sport of baseball it is time I got up on my high horse after all these years and say what a great man once said to his fans. GET A LIFE!!!
I’m sick of teh ribbing I get for the shows I like or the fact I once attended a Star Trek convention. Especially by guys I know are just as big a erd as I am.
Can we now admit that Sports Fans are no different from Star Trek Fans, or Star Wars Fans? Yes my Jock friends, you too, are large geeks. Let us look at the checklist to show the nerd factor:
Time and mental power used to memorize trivial useless facts. You may believe that knowing a ERA or GAA is important for going through life but guess what it is as useful as knowing how many par secs the Millennium falcon made the Kessel run, or Captain Kirk’s safe combination.
The ability to shamlessly dress up as favourite personalities. Notice the number of Jersey’s being sold, notice the Names and numbers on the back of most of them. Yeah, you are the guy in the Picard jumpsuit, you just have enough like minded geeks to allow you to walk in public without ridicule. Of course some of you have a physique that reveals you are not who you are pretending to be.
Putting on goofy Make up and going out in public. Yeah those Klingons are tools but guess what so are you, guy with the logo painted on your face, and you with the full body paint in the middle of winter.
Inability to relate with members of the opposite sex. I see you huddling together in your bars or locking yourselves away with the guys. How many of you have a conversation with your non fan wife or girlfriend during a playoff? How many of you would ignore an anniversary or birthday if a “BIG GAME” is on or at least think you are missing out if you have to go?
The total lack of perspective. It is just a game. The guys you watch will make a million or more a year whether they win or not. It is not the end of the world if they lose. Some guy who tries to catch a ball in the stands and somehow spoils the game does not deserve to die or be beaten up or any of that nonsense. It is a game!
Yep, just a game, and even if your favourite team is knocked out chances are they will be back next year to play again trying to win the championship game again. And guess what it really doesn’t matter. Except to you, of course.
Now having said that I have no problem with you sport nerds. You are ok by me, even though your obsessive behaviour is a little creepy.
I just ask you to not question how I can get so excited by “Just a show”. Please don’t think because you have more members in your fan clubs you are some how superior or better than me.
Don’t ever assume because your heroes are athletes your flabby beer gutted physique is ignored and because my heroes travel in fictional space ships I’m some skinny or overweight basement dweller.
Now repeat after me
“My name is _________ and I am a Nerd.”
Great rant. As someone who doesn’t really belong to either group I guess I qualify as an objective observer. And looking at both groups from the outside, there’s a lot of truth to what you’re saying. But there is one major difference. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a SciFi nerd criticize or attempt to marginalize someone who doesn’t share their obsession. I wish I could say the same thing about some sports fans.
Plus, I got picked last for kickball. Which made my dad hate me. So when I joined the soccer team in second grade, just to get him off my back, he volunteered to coach the team, and then (as he explained to me first, bless him), he had to treat me worse than the other guys so there’d be appearance of favoritism.
But he’s in a wheelchair now because he got more bar talk out of complaining about his “old football injuries” than seeing a doctor about them, and that 30-year-old lower-back-pain turned out to be a cracked vertebra, so now he’s paralyzed from the hips down. So there IS a god. Hee hee.
Bah. Go to Great Debates. Find one of the seemingly 1000s of occurrences (and I’m speaking of only since July, when I started lurking) where somebody drones, “Cite?” Then find where the person took up the challenge, then listed 12 hyperlinks that confirm his/her proposition. Then consider it must have taken more than 10 seconds to come up with the supporting material. Then consider that this person spent this amount of his/her life researching something for someone he/she (likely) only “knows” on the internet and who calls him/herself UnmitigatedMoron or something like that.
Now tell me I’m a loser for instinctively knowing that Tony Gwynn hit .370 in 1987. Or that I do a perfect Tautaun voice.
