What Makes A Real Baseball Fan?

I know this post will piss some people off. Frankly I don't care. Two discussions at Bleecker Street Bar this past week set this one in motion. The second one created the bulk of the idea that I am presenting.

This next Sunday, June 9 were are giving away a set of Yankees tickets via Yankee trivia. Harper asks me to come up with a series of questions for the quiz. Here is where my issue is. The questions that I came up with, being a Yankee fan, were deemed to be too difficult. Now I thought that the questions were not too hard if you were a true Yankee fan answering Yankee trivia. So what makes up a real fan?

Does buying a #2 Jeter shirt and a new hat, while watching a few games on the big screen during the season or even attending some live games make you a fan. In my opinion, No. It makes you more of a casual observer. A real fan puts more effort, time and investment into his team than just new gear and the occasional game. Can a casual observer become a true fan? Absolutely, but it takes time, patience and research. Allow me to elaborate.

You would think in today's age of instant information and constant footage, becoming a true fan would be easier. I mean there are more ballgames on the tube each night than when I was a kid. There's baseball on ESPN at least 4 times a week, plus at 2 games on TBS, plus YES, SNY and the games shown on FOX. Multiply that with the games on the baseball package and that's a lot of ball. I remember the Yanks on Channel 11, the Mets on Channel 9, Monday Night Baseball on Channel 7 and the game of the week either on Channels 4 or 2. For my highlights we had This Week in Baseball and on the late Sunday nights George Michaels Sports Machine. Much less viewing availability.

I learned about the ballplayers I saw on tv through baseball cards, baseball sticker albums, baseball magazines such as Street and Smith's Baseball Annual (Still get it once a year) and the box scores in the paper. Now if you want to see the career stats of the most obscure player you google the player and hundreds of pages come up with complied stats for almost all known situations (And it really comes in handy with the Blackberry in the middle of debates with Harper on slow nights). Plus in NYC there is so much more available in terms of entertainments that baseball is not your only option on tv. So why do I feel that there are many people that aren't real fans when there is so much available to them to view and use.

I guess it's just that, there is too much information without much effort. I feel today's fan doesn't have to work hard enough to keep up with his team for it to be meaningful. If you know your team (for example The Orioles) will be on at least 3 times during the week you really don't have to watch or hear them to know what happens. Unlike my friend Bryan, who used his am radio to tune in Cleveland Indians games before radio games were made available of the internet (and I believe that he still gets the radio feeds online). I just don't believe that the passion is there.

There's nothing like running to the local magazine shop and looking through the plastic sleeves of the 3 card baseball packs to see who were the 6 player cards that you knew you were getting (the 3 in front and 3 in back). Running home and laying your cards out by team and pouring over the stats on the back and reading the short quip about the ballplayer. Here I go waxing poetically again but I can't help myself. It's easier to be a casual observer who rides the success of a team when it suits them than the real fan that would sit in a near empty stadium when his team is 20 games under .500 and in last place. A real fan keeps score in the program or score book and teaches his kids to do the same at games. A real fan reads books on not only his team but on other players and teams to get a complete idea of what the game was and is. A real fan can sit and say where he was when so and so debuted, did this or that and when he stopped playing. A real fan not only knows his team's player but other players though out the years. Real fans remember moments like who rode the police horse in celebration after the 1996 World Series and the name of the kid who reached over the wall in the ALCS against the Orioles in 1996.

It's people like Pete Sophy, Dave Sirosi, Dan Corvino and Manny Aguirre who can pull random stats about random players from thin air during conversations about baseball that make up what real fans are. And like the guy who cried into his pint at Bleecker Street Bar when the Cubs lost to the Marlins in game 7 of the 2003 NLCS, that's what makes what a real fan is, not just a new hat and shirt.

So before I step off of my rant box, let me say something about the 1st conversation I alluded to in my opening paragraph. Under no circumstance do you as a Yankees fan ever root for the Mets and vice versa. Cubbies fans do not root for the Chi-Sox and South-siders never root for North-siders. Real fans never root for their arch rivals no matter who they are playing. For me, Mets vs. Red Sox in the World Series is a neutral and objective affair. Do I hate the Mets and The Red Sox? No, hate is too strong a word plus in the grand scheme of things I have more important things in my life that hatred for a rival professional baseball team. But I do have passion, love, and excitement for my team that translates into elation when the win and sorrow when they lose. I only root for one baseball team, and that's the New York Yankees. That's where my allegiance lies as a real fan.