Being A True Fan

I appreciate the fact that people who are not sports fans of any kind don’t like it when I do a segment that is sports-related and at the same time there are those who think I should only stick to sports. I’d like to think this morning’s segment will be of interest to both sides and the basis for it is Phil Taylor’s “Point After” column in this week’s Sports Illustrated.

The subject of the column is Stephen Krupin, a 27-year old speechwriter who shares Washington Nationals season tickets with his father. The Nationals are a very bad baseball team and 19 times this past season Krupin headed out to the ballpark to see them play and 19 times he left having watched his team lose. The odds of that happening according to an estimate
were 131,204 to 1 which is what you would call a real long shot. What makes this even more interesting is Krupin was supposed to attend his 20th and final game of the season on the next-to-last day when the Nats hosted the Mets. However at the last minute he accepted tickets to a U2 concert and skipped the game….need I tell you Washington rallied for a victory.

Why I share this story with you has everything to do with why I dislike most fans of the New York Yankees….not personally but rather when it comes to their rooting for their favorite team. This is especially true for those Yankee fans that seem the think that the franchise only started in 1996 when they would win the first of four World Series titles in five years. Real fans are the ones like Stephen Krupin who understand that loving a team usually means you’ll get your heart broken…at least at the end. You don’t expect to win championships, heck in most cases you’d be happy to just win more than you lose. When those great moments come, like the Phillies experienced last year, they are to be treasured as those memories might need to last a lifetime. The Mets, a team I root for and suffer with last won a championship 23 years ago and I remember that 1986 season like it was yesterday.

Many (not all) Yankee fans have trouble accepting that they have not won a World Series since 2000 and have not been in one since 2003. They think any season without the ultimate championship is a bad season. That would make Stephen Krupin laugh…he just wants to see a victory in 2010.