I'm Going Down to the Central Part of Town

As part of my ongoing quest to fully elucidate my reasons for continuing to support the Cowboys and Rangers despite the fact that I now live in a city that is home to teams in each of those respective sports, more particularly the Texans and the Astros, I submit the following argument from Mr. Will Leitch.

From pg. 236 of God Save the Fan...

It's a full-time position, rooting for a football team [baseball team, jai-alai team, curling team, nursing home shuffleboard team, etc.]...so how am I just supposed to say, "All right, yesterday I cared about these players, but now I care about these"? If something as silly as geography guides your rooting interests, isn't it wishy-washy to move your loyalty around just because someone realized the franchise could make more money in Boise rather than Topeka? Yes, it's a corporation you're rooting for, but they're your corporation. There's nothing rational about it; being a sports fan never has anything to do with being rational.


[Leitch is from central Illinois and grew up as a fan of the St. Louis football Cardinals who now play in Arizona] But what about the St. Louis Rams, you ask? Yeah, what about them? The Rams came to St. Louis in 1995. I simply did not understand why St. Louis fans transferred their loyalty. Sure, owner Bill Bidwill had left St. Louis for what was presumed to be the greener pastures of Tempe. But how does that change my life? Sure, a sports team can offer civic value to a city, but not just out of nowhere. The reason the St. Louis Cardinals are a fixture in the city is because families like mine have patterned their entire [this seems a BIT strong] social structures around them for decades. How can a team just show up and suddenly have devoted fans?

And as for "abandoning" a city...please. On the whole, NFL teams and their fans live in the same city about, oh, twenty-seven days a year. A team and its fans have as much in common as your hand and that vending machine. It's all sentiment. And I don't get to be angry about Bidwill and company leave St. Louis; hell, I don't live there anymore either.

So the only way to be honest with oneself is to pick a team and stick with them. Sure, I wish I had picked a better team, but true fans stay around, no matter what; people from Houston should root for the Titans, people from Charlotte should root for the Hornets, and people from Minnesota should root for the Dallas Stars. Otherwise, you're the one who's disloyal. You're just following whomever it is convenient to follow.

I know that I still fully support the Tyler Wildcatters (yes, Dorothy, they have a Wikipedia page), wherever they might be in the vast universe that is minor league baseball.

[The words in the brackets above are solely those of yours truly]

What is the Central Theme to This Everlasting Spoof?

As I've been notified by notable luminaries of the blogosphere-verse such as this guy and this gentleman (please don't read anything into who received the "gentleman" moniker and who was relegated to the distinction of "this guy". I'm just trying to avoid redundancy), I'm apparently the subject of a Twitter fatwa issued by noted (at least among ACU alums between 2004-2006) Auburn Tiger football supporter Austin Henley.

I am truly flattered by the groundswell of popular support that has arisen in the aftermath of Mr. Henley's decree, but as the lady friend notified me earlier this evening, I have a tendency to be "a bit long winded" (which I'm pretty sure was a euphemistic way of saying that I go on about things a BIT longer than I should sometimes/all the time), and I don't know if I could resign myself to a prison of 140 characters.

Also, and more importantly, if I own a phone that can only receive, but not send, text messages, how in the world am I supposed to tweet? Twit? Twizzle?

I give up.

Current Reading

God Save the Fan by Will Leitch