Remember back in the days when baseball was simple? As a kid, my Dad used to take my brother and I to games all the time, we could gorge on hot dogs, cotton candy, and soda and my dad went home with a few bucks left in his pocket. Now, stadiums across the country are being re-built with premium amenities and premium prices, sending parents to the poorhouse for indulging in the great American passtime. Sure, it keeps the riff-raff out, but isn't it the crazies who make the sport what it is? Alas, the children of today's baseball going experience will be privileged, but I do hope their ADD medication allows them to sit through an entire game without a temper tantrum. So my Phillies are National League champs and the city of Philadelphia, from Kensington to Manayunk is alive with hope and pride. Over here on the Left Coast, Philly fans have been coming out of the woodwork, becoming fast-friends as we watch the games in bars and share the play-by-play emotional ups and downs. Game 1 was a great high, Game 2 was like watching the Bad News Bears, and of course I pray every night the the home team advantage will shine (even if the sun doesn't) this weekend at the new Veteran's Stadium (I refuse to call it by it's new name).
I am the first to admit, I'm a fair-weather baseball fan. I cheer for the Phillies and the Giant's and that's about it. So I didn't realize how opinionated sport's fans could be until I began to feel my own passion for the Phillies welling up and low and behold, Facebook became the forum for "friends" far and wide to put my homeboys down. What fascinates me is that no one is actually a Ray's fan, they just don't want the Phillies to win. Why you's gotta be haters? What did the City of Brotherly Love ever do to you, besides secure your constitutional rights, invent electricity, and bring you such culinary delights as the cheesesteak, soft pretzel and water ice? Yes, but what has Philly done for me lately? Comedy, that's what. Why can't us? And why can't you, get yourself a little of that Philly Fever.
Unlike Phillies fans who have a deeply rooted emotional bond to the team, a bond that was passed on from generation to generation; Rays' fans are first generation. There's no history there. And the fact that so many are willing to support them over the Phillies says something, something that sounds a little like, "I have no soul, but I'd really like one." Just like the experience of going to a baseball game has become premiumized and out of reach for the everyday Joe (not to be confused with Joe the Plumber, who probably can't afford baseball tickets because he's busy paying his back taxes), fans who don't have an emotional connection to a team have to force it. And I guess the higher road would be to let them have that. Let them have their hope too. Because when you get rid of the garlic fries, the $75 seats, and the $8 beers, isn't that what it's really all about?
Still, for me, the bottom line is, the Rays' don't ask themselves; Why can't us? And if they did, who would find that funny?
