Thursday, September 22, 2005

On Fans

I got a great comment here. It's from two posts down, comment # 13 I think. Here's a quote from it. (It's from a Sox fan in NYC who watched both games in Brooklyn last night):

"Maybe I'm wrong, but there is a trend among the less educated, more idiotic Yankees fans that I just don't see in other cities. Their affiliation with the Yankees, and the pain that the Yankees' success can cause Red Sox fans, seems to be the only source of joy and self-worth in their lives. As infuriating as they were last night, it was also sad. I'm a diehard Sox fan, and I will lose my shit if they blow this, but I don't think I'll ever maniacally march around a bar looking for ways to make strangers feel bad about themselves, in an effort to give my own fucked up existence a sense of meaning and purpose. Memo to those Yankees fans: cheer all you want... even if you win it all, Jeter still won't want to hang out with you."

Brilliant. This is how I've always felt. Yes, there are dumb people in every fan base. There are some "bad" Sox fans, and I know yankee fans who are smart, and who have always felt sorry for me as opposed to taunting me all those years. Then again, they are my friends. I wonder if these same people, when in public among Red Sox fans they don't know, abuse strangers out of the blue.

But it is interesting how yankee fans as a whole seem to emit this aura of being pathetic losers, who have grasped onto the winningest team in history. That's not a coincidence.

I think that's the test of whether one is a "true" yankee fan. If you are one, you should be happy for the most part, but humble. Like, if you see a Sox fan (and this is pre-'04 we're talking), you should feel bad, and not want to rub it in their faces. You know your team has won the most championships, and that should be good enough for you without having to taunt strangers who could have joined your side, but have chosen not to.

Whereas if some guy comes up to me on the street and makes some comment to me about my Sox hat (which I've been dealing with all my life), well, I know he's just latched on to the yanks. The reason? Well, tell a person who's got nothing going for him in life that if they do a certain thing, they are allowed to suddenly be "above" everyone else. Most are going to jump at that chance.

What kills me is how it's these fake yankee fans who can come right out this year and still be arrogant, still try to make fun of me (instead of noticing how I just walk right past them--albeit with a sly smile on my face--at this time when it's my right to make fun of them, and maybe learning something about life.)

It's as if last year never happened for them. They were told they'd be royalty by putting on a yankee hat. And apparently no wins or losses or GREATEST CHOKES IN HISTORY are going to change that.

On opening day at yankee Stadium this year, I was out in the bleachers way before the game, and a yankee fan came right up to the fence and started yelling at Varitek in the bullpen. Then he turned to the other fans and said proudly, "Let 'em know! Right from the beginning!" Let who know what? It's as if he thought the yankees had won the 2004 ALCS.

So I'll just keep ignoring those losers, and not let them bother me, and know that the smart yankee fans know the truth, and none of them are going to say anything to me about first place right now, because they're probably more nervous than we are.

Thanks for the comment!

Comments:
Living in NYC for three years has taught me a LOT about Yankees fans. And you're right, it's very easy now to pick out the true fans, the ones that actually know more players than Jeter, ARod, and Giambi. The ones that it's just fun to get into a debate with.

The mailroom guy at my office today came into my cubicle and started just lauching into it:

Him: Why you look so upset? Oh, cause the Yanks are in first? Thanks for keeping it warm for us! etc etc etc
Me: continues doing my work
Him: Oh you don't want to talk to me now? Don't want to face me (this is all coming from a guy who all season would come in and ask me how his team did the night before cause he wasn't even effing paying attention when they weren't doing well!)
Me: (finally fed up) No, I don't want to talk to you because I actually have a JOB to do here. But if you want me to get into it, fine. Ok, so we're a half game back, like we've NEVER come back from behind the Yankees before. God, I don't know what we're going to do, we're behind the Yankees. We could NEVER dig ourselves out of a half game hole!

Ugh. Times like these I really hate living in NYC.
 
I, like FINY and Jere, live in NYC as a Sox fan. I even spent 4 years wearing a Sox hat in the Bronx as I went to Fordham- out there, they don't spare the epithets.

Not that FINY didn't already nail the concept, but to me, it just seems that for a lot of these guys- the Yankees gives them an opportunity to be arrogant and feel "better" than other people. They get the chance to be part of the Yankee culture that assumes status over all other teams, and ignores anything to the contrary. "We're the Yankees, we're the best, the most important, and we always win when we have to." No need to explain the silliness of this- some of them don't care. It's just a stepping stone in their life to that sensation of superiority, to an excused arrogance.

After all, the organization exudes it. They do what they want, ignore rules, spend money, get fellated by the national media. So many of the fans take the opportunity to allow themselves to act out that feeling of power and condescension- the ugliest part of the New Yorker culture, I might add. This is also why many Yankee fans are so clueless about baseball outside of New York- "who needs it? We got the Yankees."

And that's not to say there aren't some Red Sox fans that are obnoxious in their own way- for some mind boggling reason, the jerkoff Sox fans like to turn enmity back on their own team- but the Yankee fan that revels in that nature is the worst kind of fan of any major American sports team that I can think of.
 
Good call, Finy and BSM.

(or Preach On, Brother and Sister Beavises.)

(Beavi?)
 
Unlike Finy & Jere, I am a LIFELONG NY'er, born/raised in Brooklyn, living in Queens.

I do NOT like The NY Yankees, & their 1998-Minted Fans. I don't like a team, where players are JUICED, by using a syringe.

Was with members of Red Sox Nation, in the NY Exile Home of Shea Stadium, being entertained by the Mets, though, not much.

NONE of us, there, care for Yankee Wiseacres, who couldn't get tix in Da Bronx, & who come out to shove it in everyone's faces.
 

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