Well, I've finally been sucked into the world of Blogdom (Poetic License #4213), and I guess it's a good thing considering that I might, someday, want to become an English teacher. So I hope you enjoy it and that I can, from time to time, find something relevant to write about.
As you can probably tell from the title of this site, I am a bit of a sports nut. I love watching sports, talking about sports, and even reading about sports. Hell, I work for a baseball team. So being the sports nut that I am, I make it a point to keep an eye on espn.com in case any sort of sports news should pop up.
Today I was particularly interested in an article about the possible firing of Tony Eury Jr., Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s crew chief. I was quite excited, since I have been saying he should be fired for a long time now.
After reading the article I decided to check out the comments about the article, which I frequently do, just to see what people are saying about the situation. Most of what I saw I expected to see. People ripping on Tony Jr., people saying it's Dale Jr.'s fault, people saying NASCAR isn't a sport, etc. There was one comment, however, that really got to me. A guy saying that Dale Earnhardt Jr. is terrible for the sport of NASCAR. I couldn't help but respond to him saying that Dale Jr. brings in more fans to the sport than any other driver, in which he replied that since the majority of NASCAR fans are Dale Jr. fans, the NASCAR viewership would begin to deminish amidst his racing woes. Of course that is saying it a little more politely than he stated it.
This conversation went on for awhile and he basically stated that if your team/driver/favorite player isn't doing well, then you'll stop following the sport. Now I can understand this to an extent. Sure when the Suns didn't make the playoffs I lost a little bit of interest in the NBA Playoffs, but that didn't prevent me from watching it. In fact, I found a new team to root for during the playoffs, and they are doing quite well.
But the big thing this made me think of is underdogs. What if nobody cared? What if everyone rooted against the Bad News Bears? Daniel "Rudy" Ruettiger? The 2004 Boston Red Sox? How disgusting of a culture would we be?
Last year during the World Series an announcer, I can't remember which one, said that unless you're a Philadelphia Phillies fan (or perhaps a Boston Red Sox fan), you were rooting for the Tampa Bay Rays because they had gone from the doormat of Major League Baseball to the World Series in ONE YEAR! And it was great for all of baseball.
This is why so many people hate the New York Yankees, New England Patriots, and Los Angeles Lakers. If you give up on a team when they struggle and just root for the team that wins all the time, not only does it make for very boring sport, but it also teaches a bad lesson. As much as we don't like to lose, I don't think anything teaches us better.
As you can probably tell from the title of this site, I am a bit of a sports nut. I love watching sports, talking about sports, and even reading about sports. Hell, I work for a baseball team. So being the sports nut that I am, I make it a point to keep an eye on espn.com in case any sort of sports news should pop up.
Today I was particularly interested in an article about the possible firing of Tony Eury Jr., Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s crew chief. I was quite excited, since I have been saying he should be fired for a long time now.
After reading the article I decided to check out the comments about the article, which I frequently do, just to see what people are saying about the situation. Most of what I saw I expected to see. People ripping on Tony Jr., people saying it's Dale Jr.'s fault, people saying NASCAR isn't a sport, etc. There was one comment, however, that really got to me. A guy saying that Dale Earnhardt Jr. is terrible for the sport of NASCAR. I couldn't help but respond to him saying that Dale Jr. brings in more fans to the sport than any other driver, in which he replied that since the majority of NASCAR fans are Dale Jr. fans, the NASCAR viewership would begin to deminish amidst his racing woes. Of course that is saying it a little more politely than he stated it.
This conversation went on for awhile and he basically stated that if your team/driver/favorite player isn't doing well, then you'll stop following the sport. Now I can understand this to an extent. Sure when the Suns didn't make the playoffs I lost a little bit of interest in the NBA Playoffs, but that didn't prevent me from watching it. In fact, I found a new team to root for during the playoffs, and they are doing quite well.
But the big thing this made me think of is underdogs. What if nobody cared? What if everyone rooted against the Bad News Bears? Daniel "Rudy" Ruettiger? The 2004 Boston Red Sox? How disgusting of a culture would we be?
Last year during the World Series an announcer, I can't remember which one, said that unless you're a Philadelphia Phillies fan (or perhaps a Boston Red Sox fan), you were rooting for the Tampa Bay Rays because they had gone from the doormat of Major League Baseball to the World Series in ONE YEAR! And it was great for all of baseball.
This is why so many people hate the New York Yankees, New England Patriots, and Los Angeles Lakers. If you give up on a team when they struggle and just root for the team that wins all the time, not only does it make for very boring sport, but it also teaches a bad lesson. As much as we don't like to lose, I don't think anything teaches us better.
well, i agree. losing is learning. but then, if losing is learning, and if you aspire to be a teacher, well, that has lots of interesting implications.
ReplyDeletehowever, i think i take exception to the comment attributed to your antigonist that "the majority of nascar fans are dale junior fans". i'd need to see the numbers on that, cause from where i sit they just don't add up that way.
43 drivers. a fair percentage of them are jeff gordon fans. say, 15% maybe? then how about mark martin? another 10% sound close? now we move to jimmie johnson. another 10%. now lets add kurt busch. let's say 2%. david ragan? only 1%. robby gordon? 1% kasey kahne? he's pretty popular. at least 10%.
on to denny hamlin. maybe 5%. tony stewart? heck, he has to have 15% of the fans. and now we're already at 64% and we still 33 driver's fans to count, plus junior. that guy's all messed up.
finally, hats off to the underdog. rudy, reuti, mine that bird, the chicago cubs, danika patrick and the 1969 miracle mets. those cheering the underdogs today become the fans of tomorrow.
GRRR8T Job, Scooter Bob!
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