Fans who use "we:" normal or annoying?

I've blogged about my History of US Sports class in this space before, but we had a particularly spirited debate this evening - and it wasn't about a team, or a player, or even a sport. It was about the fans. Specifically, how attachment to a particular team is displayed.  There were students who were personally offended when fans used "we" in most contexts, students (including myself) who use "we," and some who didn't care.

Personally, I only get annoyed when people will say "We won," when their team wins, but "They lost," when their team loses. Don't lump yourself in only when the team is successful, then seek to distance yourself during the bad times.

In class, there were more people who used "we," or who didn't mind when others did, than those who disliked it. However, when I asked if people minded the use of "we" on social networking sites, opinions seemed to be more split. On Twitter I got two responses, one on each side of the issue.

 On Tumblr, I got five responders who bristled at the use of "we," and four who either didn't care or embraced it.  On Facebook I got four answers: three didn't care, and one was particularly vocal and articulate about her support for "we:"

"I've got my time, money, and emotions invested into these teams, go through the ups and downs with them.... sometimes fans can be the difference maker in a game... Teams can't thrive as professional teams without us... I def feel justified using "we""

The crux of the issue (on both sides) seems to come down to ownership and attachment to the team in question.  Those who thing "we" is inappropriate seem to be concerned that fans who use the term feel too close, and that they should step back some.


For me personally, sports are EXTREMELY personal. I have a visceral, emotional response to the team. I feel elated when they win, and depressed when they lose - the Boston athlete's accusation that the fans take things too seriously sometimes describes me to a "T."  I feel like my Facebook friend quoted above: I spend a huge amount of time, money, and energy on the Red Sox, and I use "we." [I do NOT feel invested enough in the Pats, Celts, or Bruins to use "we."]


What do you all think? Am I crazy and/or annoying to refer to the Sox as "we?" Do you ever do this?

Being a Red Sox fan is WORTH the heartache

We didn't deserve to make it.  As angry, depressed, disappointed, and bitter as I am right now (and it's toned down a lot since last night), I can see that.  The Red Sox mailed it in this September, and last night's debacle was nothing more than a microcosm of the last month.

They say you don't win pennants in April.  That might be true, but if nothing else, this season has taught us that you sure as hell can LOSE them in April.  If we didn't get swept by Cleveland (Cleveland!) the second series of 2011, we squeak into the playoffs last night - whether we could have done a damn thing one we were in? That's another story.

However, some of the reactionary stuff I was seeing on Twitter and Facebook last night was appalling, and - in many cases - downright foolish:

Let's start off with a tweet where the poster misspelled the closer's name, exposed his own misogyny, and blamed a player with a serious injury. I'm sorry, bro, but I know you personally, and there is no goddamned way you were playing through injuries like Salty's and Youk's. Despite the fact that Lackey has thus far been a HUGE disappointment for the money, he DID manage to win 12 games, and the suggestion to sign Prince Fielder is hardly going to help out our pitching.

Let's move on:

Gold. "Sell the team." To whom, I wonder? Are you going to buy it?  And it's not really like the owners can carry much of the blame here. Sure, if they had denied the money to sign a really important and obvious missing piece, but we all know that John Henry and Co. essentially have an open-wallet policy with Theo.  Perhaps that's where the blame should go?  But, don't forget we were all lauding Theo just eight months ago, and Sports Illustrated literally JUST ran a story extolling the virtues of his managerial technique (you might have to subscribe to SI to see it - sorry).

So this brings me to the most popular sentiment of the night:

You have got to be joking. Luckily, there sees to be just as many people on the interwebz who are violently disagreeing, and defending Tito.  I'm sure this conversation is of no surprise to Francona, after all, the double-edged sword of being a manager is that if the team wins, they were really talented, but if they lose, it's the manager's fault.  Could Tito have done more to light a fire underneath his team? Maybe. We will never know what he was doing in the clubhouse.  It is worth remembering that every single Red Sox is a grown-ass man, and therefore responsible for his own performance - Tito can only enhance.

And, to wrap up the evening, here's a status update that literally made me feel sick to my stomach:

Yes, that happened on my newsfeed last night. And FIVE PEOPLE "Liked" it.  Listen, I get the frustration, the thoughts that the team just doesn't work, that maybe starting over would be better - that it couldn't be worse. But these men are people. Just like you and me. They have families and lives outside of baseball. I don't care how much of a superfan you are, wishing for a plane crash just makes you a spectacularly shitty human being.

If anything, I hope this ending, this season, leaves us wiser as fans.  You don't win seasons in the offseason.  The playoffs are a special event, not a perennial birthright.  Sometimes you're on the losing end of epic chokefests.  All of these things kind of suck, and for fans like me, who didn't live through much of the storied franchise heartache (1999 and 2003, but before that was before my time), this is a stark reminder that we as Red Sox fans have lived a charmed existence.

But for me, it's worth it. I have seen two World Series Championships come to my team in my lifetime, and I believe I'll live to see many more.  Last night was crushing, painful, tear-inducing, because baseball and the Red Sox are my life.  But the feeling I got when I saw them win it in Colorado in 2007 and St. Louis in 2004 outweighs that heartache by an indescribable amount.  Being a dedicated (some might say obsessive) fan can fucking HURT sometimes - but when it feels good, it feels SO GOOD, SO GOOD, SO GOOD!

Of Hit-streaks and Nostalgia

Yesterday afternoon, in the eighth inning, Dustin Pedroia came to the plate hitless after his previous three at-bats (he did, however, have a walk).  The crowd, aware of his 24-game active hit streak, got to its feet and cheered, and were then rewarded when Pedey took a neck-high 3-2 offering from Greg Holland and deposited it in the Monster Seats, successfully extending his streak to 25 games.

The longest such streak in the majors this year belongs to Pedroia's close friend, Andre Ethier, with 30 games.  One can only imagine the ribbing Ethier will get if Pedey manages to notch hits in the next 6 games.

The most special part of the situation, in my opinion at least, was the fan reaction, and Terry Francona agreed: "I do think our fans are pretty special. They do react to things like that. It's part of what makes Fenway so great," he said. "We don't need to have President races or mustard racing ketchup. Our fans like our baseball. I actually really think that's cool. Nothing against mustard."

 This is part of why I find Fenway Park so special - we don't need the gimmicks that other teams depend on to draw and keep fans.  The new Yankee Stadium, for instance, felt to me like I was in a shopping mall and a baseball game broke out - it was plastered with technicolor ads and gimmicks, there were games and giveaways every half-inning on the scoreboard, almost like a minor-league stadium.

While Fenway does have a big new high-def scoreboard, it also hangs onto nostalgia with it's manual scoreboard under the very same Monster Pedroia homered into yesterday, as well as the same wooden grandstand seats in which your father and grandfather might have sat.  And the fans are just as knowledgeable and vociferous as they were when Teddy Ballgame was swatting homers from that very same batters box.

Lamentations of a Lady-Fan

As a female fan, I get my share of patronizing looks and remarks, and then stares of amazement when I prove I'm not in it to ogle the players' butts in baseball pants. For instance, this Friday afternoon I was at a club meeting, and a freshman who I'd met once or twice before walked in and asked, to the room at large, "Who are you all picking to win the World Series?"

Of course, I've put a lot of thought into this, and so I immediately answered "Philly."


"No," he shook his head at me. "They're losing to San Fransisco in the NLCS. Tim Lincecum is going to destroy Roy Halladay."

Normally, I enjoy baseball debates, but he had the air of someone who is teaching a stubborn first grader that 1+1 does, in fact, equal 2. I bristled at his tone, and asked him a simple question:

"Really? How many perfect games does Tim Lincecum have under his belt?"

He stared blankly at me, before answering, "Well, none. But how many Cy Youngs does Roy Halladay have? Zero."

I gaped at him in disbelief. "Seriously? Roy Halladay was the Cy Young winner in 2003! In the AL East, no less!"

He then scoffed at the ferocity of competition in that division, calling it overrated, at which point got some backup from another boy in the room:

"Seriously? The three best teams in baseball are in that division!"

"And," I added, "The Red Sox won eighty-nine games with a final lineup that included several players who had started the year in Double-A!"

"So?" The original questioner asked, "The White Sox won more than that and they had injuries!"

At this point, the other members of the (predominantly male) club were staring at us. My friend Steph, the only other girl in the room, and decidedly NOT a baseball fan, was giggling. [This would be a better story if Halladay had shut down the Giants last night, but the Phils lost. Either way, it was not the pitcher's duel most baseball fans were expecting.]

I decided not to correct him. He clearly did not know what he was talking about, and he doubted my credibility as a source in any case (for the record, the White Sox won 88 games in 2010). I'm not sure why he thought I wasn't a reliable source of baseball knowledge, but in the past I've been told that I can't possibly know sports because I am a straight female.

This is exactly WHY I am sometimes judgmental of other fans - shouldn't they be held to the same ridiculous standards of knowledge as I am?

This is ridiculous. I spend 90% of my free time researching, watching, or discussing baseball. I run this blog and another, and I have a veritable library of baseball books. My computer toolbar has six baseball links, one for Twitter (where I discuss baseball), and one for my college's athletics website.


So, clearly my being in possession of a uterus excludes me from intelligent baseball discourse. I'm sorry for wasting all of your time with my yattering about a sport I am biologically unable to understand.