On Boston and New York games
I hate going to the stadium and finding it packed with visiting fans. I hate sitting around people who don’t know anything about the M’s. As a general rule, I’ve found Red Sox and Yankee fans by far the drunkest, rudest, crowds. Every time I’ve been at an M’s game and seen some minor incident – brushing up against someone trying to pass through one of the concourse choke points, for instance – turn into rudeness/a fight challenge, it’s been when the M’s play one of those two teams, and the affronted, loud party’s decked out in the other team’s gears (and it’s a handful of times, so yes, maybe it’s entirely random)(it isn’t). I hate that there are people who’ve grown up in Seattle and are Red Sox fans, and if I had to explain that one, I’m not sure where’d I start.
But…
I love that it’s tense. I love that there are M’s fans who heckle the Red Sox fans, and they give it back. I love that the M’s fans feel compelled to counter-cheer, and applaud good plays even harder. I love that when they come to town, we get good games worth watching. I love that attending those games feels like it matters.
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Let’s just hope Reading can stay up another year. Losing Sidwell is going to suck.
Just get past Derby, Sunderland and Wigan and you are all right for one more year. Reading play good football, yez should be able to finish up ahead of Man City, Birmingham and West Ham.
I was at a Glasgow Celtic match once where a fan a section over from us had to leave the stands with a dart sticking out of his forehead, thrown from the opposing fans, course this was before CCTV’s and the booze control. Read Among the Thugs by Bill Buford on fanaticism and hooliganism in the EPL, good read.
Go M’s, tonight Im cheering for the Bosox.
94 Believe it, Ichiro gets it pretty bad in Oakland. It’s one thing to boo, but it’s another thing to ridicule someone over their race. You’d think it was December 7, 1941 all over again. What’s crazier is that Oakland is a very culturally diverse city.
DW:
you must have loved it when Sidwell got stuck into Goldenballs in the Chelsea Galaxy match eh?
I root for the team in the city I live. Growing up in Northern California, I had my choice of the A’s and Giants. Since watching pitchers bat is rather silly, I went with the A’s. I went to college in San Diego and rooted for the Pods. Then I moved up here and now root for the M’s. So, oddly enough, I’m a former fan of both our de facto and de jure rivals.
If (for some bizaare reason) I ever move to the East Coast, I’m going to have to break my rule though. Can’t ever see rooting for the BoSox.
BTW, true Red Sox fans hate the bandwagoneers even more than you do. People who think Yaz is a birth control pill?
I really have no problem with Red Sox fans who actually have a good reason to be fans…
For instance, I live about 5 minutes away from the Everett Aquasox field, and I go to at least 3 of their games a year. Do I care that they’re a short A team, and the results of their games aren’t exactly significant? No not at all, because they’re my cities team.
There is really no reason to cheer for a team you have no affiliation with. There has to be something that endears you to them before just the fact that they typically win.
huh.
I believe I’ve mentioned before my becoming a Pirates fan from 3,000 miles away, due to Roberto Clemente …
80. Heh. I’ve never been to a game with Dodgers fans. They usually leave right after the national anthem to beat the traffic.
Not true.
Fans in Los Angeles are still on the freeways during the national anthem, and don’t arrive until the 2nd or 3rd inning.
It’s not just the Dodgers, the Lakers fans are even worse.
Despite that, for sheer hatred, hostility, and violence, it’s possible that the Dodgers-Giants rivalry outdoes the Yankees-RedSox rivalry. it doesn’t attract nearly as much notice nationally, but it’s intense.
Yeah, when was the last time you heard of someone getting killed in the parking lot at a Yankees or Red Sox game? (That’s rhetorical by the way. I don’t know if it’s happened or not.)
Security was so stepped up for the Dodgers-Giants games last week I was asked to open my cell phone. I guess they were checking for those new shiv-hiding fake cell phones.
I’m with Jeff @ #81–for the most part…I’m more bored with the hat-trick than the hydro races.
My cheering is situation based. I don’t need the scoreboard to tell me when to cheer–but neither do I feel obligated to stand up just because a pitcher has two strikes on a guy…that to me seems JUST as contrived.
I’ve spent some time trying to argue against those NY/Boston fans who think that because we’re not drunken, battery throwing, zombie chanting idiots that we’re not real fans–but now, I’ve learned just to enjoy the fact that they spend their money and (in theory) our team uses that money to make ourselves better.
Success is the best revenge–and the best way to shut down an arrogant fan of another team who is taking advantage of our hospitality.