posted on Dec, 7 2005 @ 05:35 PM
No.
If you've read my other posts, you'll know what I think. I think a lot of people from this state, and especially from the Bay Area and L.A. area,
consider themselves "above" sports--and especially football and hockey. With the steroid/HGH scandal becoming increasingly impossible to deny, and
Bonds' involvement in it equally impossible to deny in light of recent data about his HR distances over the years, baseball will probably also become
"too lowbrow" for these good people.
I wrote about this at length once here, and got my blood pressure up real good, remembering the night I took one woman to a Giants game late in the
season, when they were in the division race and one of their hitters was in the HR race (no, not him). She told me the intensity of some of the fans
(in half-empty Candlestick Park) was "laughable," and when I asked a guy with a radio behind me if the other guy had hit a HR that night, and he
avidly replied, "No," she said, "Hmm, must be a male bonding kind of thing." I probably don't need to tell you how many more baseball games--or, for
that matter, dates--I took her on.
A lot of other people I know who knew nothing about baseball got very interested in the Atlanta Braves--not because their team rose like a phoenix in
the late 80's en route to a historic string of successes, but because of their "appalling tomahawk chop." Well, I happen to agree with those people
about "The Chop," but they don't know what they're talking about, never saw the behavior of drunken Braves fans toward Native Americans engaging in
100% peaceful, silent protest (something the aforementioned self-righteous folks I know don't engage in), and have never taken the time to hear Don
Sutton run his mouth. In other words, they're offended because it's the party line and the chic thing to do, not because they really know anything
about it.
It's like their agreeing with me that Gaylord Perry, Fred Lindstrom, Rick Ferrell, Ray Schalk and Travis Jackson don't belong in the Hall of Fame...
without taking the time to have an INFORMED opinion first. Hell, I'd MUCH rather talk to someone with an informed OPPOSING opinion than a
self-appointed guardian of our political correctness who doesn't know what the hell he/she's talking about. I'm sure you feel the same way about your
socio-political perspective. Right? I mean, who needs spokespeople like those? Some people are just plain embarrassing to have on your side, no
matter what your side is, and you wish they'd just shut up.
And these people, who USUALLY (but not always) agree with me about social and political matters--e.g., they voted for Clinton in 1992 and 1996; I'm
proud to say I never did--look down their self-important noses at such plebian activities as following organized sports and having a passionate
loyalty for a team.
Trust me. I have lived in the Bay Area (1953-1971), the Sacramento area (1971-1994) and far Northern California (1994- ) my entire life. And I've
heard more than enough about Southern California to know that, though the politics can be very different, the attitude toward sports is the same.
Walking out of a PERFECT GAME in the 8th or 9th inning?!? W.T.F. is THAT?!? Those people should have had their photos taken and been banned from
Dodger Stadium, and the ones who were season ticketholders should have had them revoked.
I like the small town of 15,000 that I live in, on the coast, near Oregon, but I would die before I would live in the Bay Area again, and anyone who
wants to move me to the greater L.A. or San Diego area should come well-armed.
Hell, I think L.A. has passed Chicago as the country's second greatest metropolitan area, and they cannot even support a football team?? Wanna
explain that to me? They're all too damn sophisticated, even in the more conservative part of the state, to support a football team. Perhaps they
prefer watching soccer, where far superior athletes run all over the field in a dazzling display of athleticism and, oh, once every 2 or 3 days,
someone scores a goal.
It's a state which thinks itself too sophisticated to follow sports. And mind you, I love brie, French Bread, haute cuisine, classical music,
fine furniture and lots of other highbrow stuff--just like lots of people from the rest of the country do, and just like I'm sure some of y'all do. I
also like REAL people. I played poker for a living, and then ran a poker game for a living, while in college--hanging out with people the average
student at my university couldn't relate to in a zillion years. And I liked them better, on average, than my fellow students. I used to take great
joy in watching arrogant univeristy students get chopped up like so much meat by auto mechanics who hadn't finished high school....
I do not understand why liking fine things means one cannot also appreciate NORMAL things. I do not understand why having a good formal education
means one cannot understand and genuinely like people who have lots of common sense and lots of real-life experience, but little formal education. I
do not understand why having one set of views makes one superior to those who disagree and have very different views.
And I don't understand--at all--how not watching or caring about your area's sports teams makes you a "sophisticate." But trust me, my site-friend,
that's how it's viewed by a lot of Californians. There are obviously many others who don't agree, but not enough to support a football team in the
cancerously well-populated L.A. area, for god's sake.
B.H.N.