Comments on: Offday “Blog Club” Discussion: Hating

By: Jim Crikket

Jim Crikket — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 17:43:52 +0000

Thank you, YF and AW, for sharing your thoughts. You both raise some good points. I hope maybe a few others will come across this post, even though the offday is over, and share their thoughts, as well.

I just think the whole fan mentality is kind of intriguing. There probably isn’t a specific right or wrong way to feel about these ballplayers, but I do think expressions of those feelings should be kept within the boundaries of good taste. Granted, that’s a bit of an subjective boundary, but since this is our blog, I guess we’ll get to decide what those boundaries are here.

Thanks again… and we’ll give some thought as to whether to make this kind of discussion a regular “offday” series.

By: YankeeFan

YankeeFan — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 17:15:54 +0000

As always, I am a day late (and a few dollars short)…

The article was interesting, to be sure. I think that having read it (and too lazy to go back and reread it) I am unsure whether the point was “sports figures are playing characters” or that “sports figures should be viewed as peripheral characters because we only know peripheral facts about them.” While I disagree with the former, I never stopped to think about the latter, and now that I have, it’s fundamentally true. It’s the only way to justify loving the sight of Boggs on his horse as a Yankee, after having him torment you for your entire childhood. It’s the only way to reconcile loving Ulf Samuellson as a Ranger, or cheering David Justice as a Yankee, or…

…well you get the point. It feeds into Jerry Seinfeld’s “rooting for laundry” concept. “Our guy” is loved by us and hated by you, and “your guy” is hated by us but loved by you. How can that be if we hate or love based on the people themselves, and change allegiances so easily?

It’s not that LeBron is playing the villian, it’s that everyone outside of Miami went through that same wrestling-mentality change about him — from “he’s amazing, we have respect for him” to “he quit on his team” to “he fled and betrayed cleveland.” It is here that people like to say “he’s not like MJ…” well, at least what we think when we compare the LeBron character to the MJ character. LeBron likely doesn’t have a gambling problem…

I think this is the essence of what makes sports interesting. It’s not just Ws and Ls, it’s about the story, the soap opera. It’s why kids mistake athletes for “heroes” and people put their lives on hold during their team’s playoff run.

You can always tell when sports is at its highest by the sheer number of storylines that are forced. During these hockey and basketball playoffs, (other than the obligatory puff pieces) there was little in the way of forced “journalism.” There didn’t need to be — the game, and the actual stories (game 7s, finger biting, Lebronathon, Kobe swept, etc.) were plenty. We follow those storylines and make up characters in our heads. How many times have you said “he’d be fun to root for?” for a guy you absolutely “hate” (Dustin Pedrioa and Kevin Youkilis come to mind…).

Anyway, I don’t have much to say about the impact on the Twins fan (obviously) but it is an interesting article and concept to wrap a head around. Thanks for pointing it out and sorry for rambling…

By: AW

AW — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 14:58:50 +0000

I, too, really like Posnanski. He’s a sportswriter, sure, but what makes his stuff great is that he’s philosopher for the common man. A few months ago he had an amazing post on his father, and how he and Joe worked at the same factory for a summer. It was a perfect blend of sports, life, and coming of age stuff. Makes me jealous. Ok . . . about the LeBron post. I think there a handful of athletes that do love to play the villian character, but it’s a minority. I’m talking about Dennis Rodman kind of guys. We really know nothing about LeBron, except that he is very good at the game of basketball, donates a fair amount of money and time to charity and, sure, thinks highly of himself. He was foolish to do the ESPN special, though, even if the proceeds went to charity. I understand why Cleveland fans are going to be sore about that for a while. Yesterday, I found myself cringing when Drew Butera stepped to the plate with the game on the line. I don’t like his continued presence on the Twins’ roster, but I don’t dislike the guy personally. I don’t like that Gardy had no other legitimate choices off the bench, but I don’t dislike Gardy or the injured players on a personal level. And, despite some stuff I have posted, I actually don’t personally dislike Bill Smith. At that moment, though, what can you do besides forget that Butera was batting .175, and just root for the guy? To me, most everything I think or write about athletes is limited to “on the field” stuff (except for Will Clark, who I personally witnessed berate an 8-year-old). Most of the encounters I have had with MLB guys over the years have been very positive. They are real guys, not characters.