Catalanotto
Tommy Wiseau
Sarcasm at it's best.
Posts: 69
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Post by Catalanotto on Oct 10, 2017 18:28:52 GMT -5
Anyone who jumps ship isn't a real fan.
I have one team in each of the 4 major sports here (baseball, hockey, football, basketball) and have been a fan of each for over 20 years. They have gone through great times and now 3 of the 4 are going through shit times (actually, 1 has been shit for a while, 1 has been semi-shit, 1 just became shit, and the last has been shit for a while as well). Whatever, I will bleed their colours until I die.
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Post by HMARK Center on Oct 11, 2017 8:59:56 GMT -5
I can agree with the notion that jumping ship makes sense if your team has pushed you past either a moral event horizon (e.g. a scandal you just can't forgive) or if it's just SO inept and you don't have enough ties to it emotionally to warrant the drain it puts on you as a fan.
I also get that it's tough with the NBA; that's a league where one major player switching teams can alter the entire landscape, and where typically 26-28 teams enter the season without a single solitary prayer of winning the Finals. I grew up a Knicks fan and also had some partiality for the Nets, but man alive did those teams chase me away something fierce. THAT was some serious incompetence.
Football's also driven me away to a degree, but that's a twofold factor: one is that I now work more on Sundays, cutting a lot into potential NFL viewing time I could have, but right up with that is my disgust with the concussion stuff and with the league itself as an institution. Goeddell and most of the owners are utterly loathsome, and while owners in other sports aren't much better they just don't seem quite as awful. I've been a Giants fan for a good while, and also sympathetic to the Jets as they were my grandpa's team (and now my young brother's), but I don't have a lot of patience for the league anymore. That's the moral issue coming in, at least somewhat.
Baseball and hockey are different for me. I didn't grow up a committed hockey fan, it just wasn't a big deal in my household as a child, but during college I made the active decision to really get into it, and pretty quickly committed myself to cheering on the Devils; they are, after all, the only true pro team that fully represents New Jersey, and I had great memories of being a kid and watching their playoff and Cup runs in the 90s and early 00s. Once they announced they were moving to Newark, right next to my old hometown, I was 100% in. I was lucky enough to have a half season ticket plan for the 2012 Cup Final run, I've been to tons of games at the Rock, and it's all the better because a lot of my friends are Devils fans, too, and we've done things like group nights out and trips to away games. Of course, Devils fans are also united in our hatred for all things Rangers or Flyers, which is part of the fun, and since we've long been looked at as the "little brother" team in the area it makes sticking it to the older clubs all the sweeter. No, I didn't have to suffer much watching the Devils when I was younger, but I'm willing to stick with them during this rebuild, as they clearly have a plan in mind. There's a regional, "hometown" identity there, and I like having it...plus, I live a pretty damn short train ride away from the arena.
Baseball...I can't give the Mets up. No matter how much they try and force my hand, I can't. Baseball is the one sport that has always brought my entire family together, going back to my dad's aunts and uncles getting ragged on by other Sicilians for cheering the Giants or Dodgers (since that meant not cheering Joe DiMaggio), through the Miracle Mets winning it all in my dad's last year of high school, to my being born smack dab in the middle of the 80s teams' run, to getting made fun of as a kid because I became a fan during the time of "The Worst Team Money Could Buy", to staying up late to listen to Bob Murphy and Gary Cohen on my radio because my family cable package didn't include SportsChannel, to spending my current summers with a beer and a ballgame, etc. Seeing them make the playoffs in '99 opened my eyes to what actual winning and postseason glory could look like (thanks Todd Pratt and Robin Ventura), and I even messaged my brother and cousins during the 2015 NLCS to say "you have to cherish this, the last time they won a pennant was half my life ago", and got to bring my dad to Game 3 of the World Series. Plus, the Mets are the opposite of the stuffed-shirt Yankees, and as annoyingly awful as the Wilpons are as owners, I don't want to see the Mets turn into the Yankees in terms of identity and blowing everybody away by miles payroll-wise. Last and certainly not least, I'm a National League guy, so that's part of it all, as well. So this one's less about regional identity and more about team/league identity and familial connections. Yeah...can't just abandon that.
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salz4life
Grimlock
Prichard is a guy who gets that his job is to service his boss.
Posts: 13,913
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Post by salz4life on Oct 11, 2017 15:41:43 GMT -5
I was asked this question so many times prior to last summer. Why on earth are you a Cubs fan!?!? They always find a way to let you down. My answer was always some kind of form of "It is all I've ever known". It also made November 2, 2016, that much more special!
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Post by OVO 40 hunched over like he 80 on Oct 11, 2017 17:29:57 GMT -5
I'm thankful that I've seen the Lakers win five championships, that makes it worth enduring the past five years that have been complete shit. Currently even the fn clippers are better than us...
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Burst
El Dandy
*inarticulate squawking*
Posts: 8,558
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Post by Burst on Oct 12, 2017 8:55:07 GMT -5
Not no chance, but when your team repeatedly blows excellent chances and repeatedly chokes and you're constantly told "but they're still a good team", it makes you seriously reconsider being a fan. Yeah, the Tribe was good, but they were good last year, good in 2013, 2007, 1997... good at choking.
It's one thing to have a team that's constantly bad. It's another thing to have a team that can never get it done when it matters. I'm done with them. I need a new team that won't constantly destroy my hopes.
And everyone is still like "Well you guys just won the NBA with LeBron" and I'm like I DON'T CARE I DON'T FOLLOW BASKETBALL it means nothing to me.
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Post by Hurbster on Oct 15, 2017 6:39:58 GMT -5
Because they are my team. I stuck with Saints through multiple relegations, going bust, dodgy owner and the club nearly folding. I was also there as they got multiple promotions and got into Europe like a Phoenix from the f***ing flames.
This is my team, this is my passion, through the good times and the bad.
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Push R Truth
Patti Mayonnaise
Unique and Special Snowflake, and a pants-less heathen.
Perpetually Constipated
Posts: 39,269
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Post by Push R Truth on Oct 15, 2017 7:00:56 GMT -5
What makes victory taste so sweet is all the years of defeat and misery.
I know 'Bama Fans that are more miserable after 1 loss in an season than a Browns Fan is after 12+. I'd argue it's more unhealthy to always be "A Winner with too high of expectations" than a "Loser with none at all"
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bob
Salacious Crumb
The "other" Bob. FOC COURSE!
started the Madness Wars, Proudly the #1 Nana Hater on FAN
Posts: 78,202
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Post by bob on Oct 16, 2017 11:58:42 GMT -5
Aaron Rodgers just went down and my team is a shell of themselves....but I'm sticking with them
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brody
Don Corleone
Posts: 1,463
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Post by brody on Oct 19, 2017 21:04:35 GMT -5
With Rodgers out, I'm suddenly overly qualified to chime back in on this. I'll be watching, but I think the secondary issues will give out against Brees but Hundley and company might keep things interesting.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Oct 20, 2017 13:08:30 GMT -5
I remember Packers teams in the 70s & 80s; when 4-2 at this point in the season being worthy enough to crack open the champagne...of beers.
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Post by corndog on Oct 21, 2017 1:16:00 GMT -5
I was asked this question so many times prior to last summer. Why on earth are you a Cubs fan!?!? They always find a way to let you down. My answer was always some kind of form of "It is all I've ever known". It also made November 2, 2016, that much more special! Now it seems the Cubs don't really fit this bill, but they did for long enough. Being a Cubs fan was just odd and kind of hard to explain to other fans. The ridiculous optimism in April, the pain in September/October, and the love affair with Wrigley Field, the team, the players and everything around it. The odd thing about Cubs fans is they never gave up, they still loved their team, and they always had hope, even though this team broke their hearts so many times. I am not an emotional person at all, but I cried after they won. I didn't cry for myself, I cried because of all the people that loved this team, played for this team and poured their heart into them that didn't get to see this.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Oct 28, 2017 19:03:16 GMT -5
Welcome to IU Football. Unfortunately, we now hang around but can't beat any good teams, which is so frustrating. Yeah but when you do actually beat somebody... anybody, it's a huge celebration! The lowest of the lows are what make the highs so much fun! The unfortunate thing is that, unlike your Cyclones, my Hoosiers are like Sisyphus; always trying to get that win, only to blow it.
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