FanPost

Fandom with an Asterisk

I said I'd post my thoughts on being a fan after the revelations about the Astros and the [lack of] consequences for those involved; not to mention the issues with Julio Urias, etc. Because of the time required, and the length, it seemed easier to do it here than in a comments section.

Will I, as someone who dropped the entire sport of football after 40-odd years of rooting for my team, remain a baseball fan? Yes. Why?

I've never had any illusions about who professional athletes are. I've known since high school, at the latest, that most athletes who experience success on any level are assholes. Darn few of them are pleasant people in real life. Certainly there are exceptions, but asshole is the baseline for successful athletes. As a sports fan, I long ago accepted that these are mostly not very nice people I'm rooting for.

It's also been a long time since I had any illusions about institutional actors like Rob Manfred when large sums of money or prestige are at play. Sports, churches, political parties, businesses large and small, even in charities: people who succeed in an institution defend the institutional status quo. Few incumbents want real reform. This is not news.

Does any of that stop me from being angry? No. Does it stop me from calling for better? No. (Is my small voice of protest likely to change anything? No. But it's what I can do.)

What for me is different about this baseball mess -- different from the football mess that made me walk away -- is how people have reacted to it. Fans, players, coaches, and FO guys alike are angry. You have your outliers like Pedro Martinez who want to shame the whistleblower, but the overwhelming reaction has been to shame the Astros.

When the Jonathan Martin scandal broke in the NFL, I was sickened but not surprised that NFL athletes would behave like bullying assholes. What made me walk away from the game entirely was the reaction people had to the scandal. Fans, players, coaches, and FO guys alike (if anonymously) reacted by saying NFL athletes should be bullying assholes. They have to be bullying assholes. It's the only way to be good at the game.

When a sport's defenders say it inherently brings out the worst in people, then that sport should not exist. Certainly not for my entertainment. Walking away from it was not a difficult decision. It made me sad, but there was only one thing to do and retain any semblance of the person I had chosen to be.

That's not what I'm hearing from baseball. I'm hearing fans, players, coaches, and executives saying they expect better than what we got from the Astros. That baseball can and should be better than that.

Are those people still mostly assholes? Yes. Will baseball always have major problems? Almost certainly, yes. But the problems are not inherent in the sport itself. Its existence does not rely on cultivating and glorifying the worst in people. It can be better. In some ways, if too few, it wants to be better. Expects itself to be better. However fucked up it is, it still has a conscience capable of being shocked.

So, for now, I stay and I root for the laundry. In every possible sense.

This is a fan-written post that is in no way affiliated with or related to any of the authors or editors of True Blue LA. The opinions reflected in this post do not necessarily reflect those of True Blue LA, its authors or editors.