Sunday, July 20, 2008

On the subject of Love and Passion... sports style

Watching a major league home town team can be about as frustrating as anything, especially when they don't look very major league.

Just a little over a week ago, I witnessed a home town team team that looked very major league. So what is the difference?

The Seattle Mariners are a high salary, high class organization that has a fan base that jumps on and off the bandwagon as fast as they can. Their loyal fan base, and I will repeat LOYAL fan base is made up of those baseball fans who understand the meaning of team. I saw more senior citizens with their Mariners gear and discussing how they love their team than any of the beer drinking younger fans.

The Chicago Cubs, the lovable losers for years on end, have become one of baseball's best. Their fans always have been, and it comes with a loyalty factor that is easy to understand. Cubbies fans root for the name on the front, not the name on the back.

It seems like so many of today's players play for the name on the back. They get paid very well to do so. When you witness a team come together like the Cubs have, what is not to love.

On those summer afternoons in South Carolina, I loved watching Harry Caray and Steve Stone on WGN, and loved watching the Cubs. Seeing them in person made that love grow, in the same eyes of the person who watched them over 20 years ago.

I wore a Mariners jersey to the game today, hoping to get that feeling for my home team, but I could not wear it with the passion that I would of a Nationals jersey (my true hometown team - or more accurately the team that represents my home town) or the new found, but old school passion of my new Cubs jersey.

What I miss is the passion. What I miss is the love. It's what I imagine being an ex-husband might feel like after a sad divorce from a wife who just didn't care.

I want to care. I want to feel like my team does.

Good night, Brooks. You understood the passion long ago.

Yours truly,
Johnny Blogger

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I could not have said this better myself. I often get accused of being a "bandwagon jumper" because my baseball team just happens to be the Yankees.
BUT.... my grandpa was a diehard Yankee fan, my mother was a diehard Yankee fan(I even wrote a funny blog about her over at DailySu), so I could not HELP but be a Yankee fan.
I had a poster of Bucky Dent (yes, the baseball bat one) until it ripped to shreds from being tacked to and taken off wall after wall as we moved on Uncle Sam's orders.
My mom carried a Yankee Cabbage Patch doll (remember those?) she named Donnie Jr. (after Don Mattingly), and we took "Sunday drives" past Lou Piniella's house. Yes, we had reached "stalker" stage. :)
Anyway... I am such a fan that I cry when we lose, cry when we win, cry when we don't try, cry when we try too hard... you get the picture.
So, I close this by saying, I stand by you as you try to reclaim passion for your team.