By Ryan Mulligan
Being a fan shouldn’t feel natural. It shouldn’t feel comfortable. It shouldn’t feel like a parade that comes by every couple of years or a fashion statement that adorns baseball caps the world over. It shouldn’t be about fitting in or following the crowd.
Fandom should be a struggle. It should stand challenges from other fans and frustrations at the bumps and lumps that accompany every team’s journey to greatness. It should require you to sweat, cry, and change your sleep cycle out of love for your team. It requires that you be upset and confused over your manager’s decisions, that you scout the free-agent market mid-season, and that you grin with pride when opposing fans flip you off. And when your team wins it all, you do not act like your train just arrived five minutes late. You act like you’ve found your own personal version of salvation.
I am a Phillies fan, and after a few years of hell and several more of purgatory, my team and my city finally reached the promised-land last year. Before winning the World Series in 2008 over the Tampa Bay Rays, none of Philadelphia’s four major sport franchises had won a title in 25 years (dating back to Julius Erving’s 1983 NBA Champion 76ers). And I have been delighted and moved by the journey to the brink of a repeat this year.
In the National League Divisional Series against the Colorado Rockies the Phillies fought back from deficits to win both games three and four in the ninth inning, as Ryan Howard’s bat powered the ball through the cold thin Colorado air and brought the Phillies a three games to one victory. In the National League Championship Series, the Phillies out-powered the favored L.A. Dodgers, with the entire lineup contributing as the Phillies put up seven runs a game and the maligned bullpen reasserted itself. The Phillies won the National League pennant four games to one. In the World Series, Phillies ace Cliff Lee showed he has what champions are made of, but his fellow pitchers all struggled at various points and the offense was not opportunistic, as the Yankees stars paid back the investments of the Yankees front office, none more than Hideki Matsui and closer Mariano Rivera. And thus the evil empire grabbed its first championship since 2001, and brought New York its first championship since the 2008 Super Bowl.
What delusions could inspire in me such pride over a bunch of guys I don’t know personally throwing a ball around? A Philadelphia fan, I can stand the rigors and disappointments as long as those players keep fighting. Fandom is inspired by watching players you love play the way you love them to play. It can’t be the height of your season when their bosses go out there and shop—although this is important, too. When you watch tough and hungry young men develop from prospects to your numbers one through four hitters (Jimmy Rollins, Shane Victorino, Chase Utley, and Ryan Howard) you find a team worthy of your allegiance. When you watch gritty professionals like Raul Ibanez, Jason Werth, and Cliff Lee play the game like you wish all children played it, you find a team worthy of your fandom. When you find a catcher as undervalued in all areas as Carlos Ruiz is, also a product of the Phillies farm system, you have to appreciate him. And when you find a full team that runs to first base every time, whether they might beat out the throw or they’re heading for a sure out, you have found a group of players that you can root for through wins and losses. And when one of them slips up, you boo to remind them how much you care. And then sometimes when it sounds like you’re booing, you’re really saying “Ra-uuuuul!” The Phillies have earned my passion by forming a team whose play matches my passion.
Yankees fans have the easiest job in sports, moreso even than Patriots fans (who have to live through Bill Belichick’s misinformation campaigns and through sitting in the freezing cold when they go to a game). The league’s richest franchise by a lot, the Yankees spent more money this past off-season on three acquisitions—$423.5 million on C.C. Sabathia, Mark Texiera, and A.J. Burnett—than many teams do on their entire active roster. They’ve remade that money by selling beautiful and expensive seats to those gentlemen on Wall Street who crashed the global economy, as well as branding heaps of merchandise worldwide with the forever recognizable Yankees logo. And people buy that merchandise and call themselves Yankee fans because when you’re a Yankees fan, life is good and comfortable. Not to worry; another championship is on the way soon.
Phillies fans are extraordinarily knowledgeable about their team. People in red across the region had an opinion this year on what skipper Charlie Manuel should do with the bullpen. By contrast, everyone with an interest in sports has some knowledge of the Yankees team. Turn on ESPN in the summer, and you will find analysts happy to orient you to the Yankees’ current affairs on a show I call “The Yankees and Red Sox Show.” ESPN likes to call it “Sportcenter.”
I had the privilege of attending a World Series game at Yankee Stadium in 2003, when the Yankees fell to the upstart Florida Marlins. (The Marlins would take the series in six games.) And from the subway ride into the Bronx to the final out to the train ride back, fans were quiet and expectant. The atmosphere was of unshakeable optimism and the calm conviction of entitlement. I’ll give Yankees fans this: they have a commendable appreciation for their team’s history. But that history that accompanies the pinstripes and the frieze around the roof of the stadium, the ever-present reminders of greatness, has made them forget the insatiable do-or-die hunger of the baseball fan. Before a Yankees fan calls anyone else a fair-weather fan, let’s see how they do when the Yankees see some foul weather. Fandom isn’t expecting to win; fandom is hanging on and screaming, hoping the roller-coaster ride will end with a win.
Need further evidence Yankees fans are easily accommodated? Microsoft Word spell-check does not recognize the word “Phillies.” It has no problem, however, with “Hideki Matsui.”
I don’t fault casual baseball fans. Going to a game with your kid and explaining what a double play is while you eat a hot dog and comment on how comfortable your leather seat in a spiffy zillion-dollar stadium financed by taxpayers during an economic depression is a lovely fixture of American culture. But that’s not really fandom. If you want to see fandom, talk to a Phillies fan.
This article is © 2008 The Bi-College News. The material on this page is free for personal or educational use, but may not be reproduced, reprinted, republished, redistributed, or otherwise transmitted to a third party without the express written permission of The Bi-College News, 370 Lancaster Ave, Haverford, PA 19041.
Editor's note: Articles that appear in the Last Word section are works of satire.
