This week, the Hat Trick looks at three factions of sports fans: Baseball Traditionalists vs Baseball Progressives, Dallas Cowboys Fans vs Dallas Cowboys Haters, and the Pro-LeBrons vs the Anti-LeBrons.
Baseball Traditionalists vs Baseball Progressives
Baseball is a sport that has been woven into the fabric of American culture since shortly after the Civil War, with the first openly professional club, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, beginning play in 1869. In spite of being the oldest major American team sport, the game has experienced fewer changes to the actual gameplay than any of the other major sports.
Traditionalists
Baseball traditionalists take great pride in that characteristic of the game. In addition, baseball is, far and away, the most statistically driven major sport in America. Because the game has experienced relatively little evolution (over the course of 142 seasons as opposed to less than 100 in professional football and basketball) traditionalists enjoy the ability to make well reasoned comparisons of teams and players across spans of generations.
Baseball should be played the way it was "meant to be played" (whatever that means). Traditionalists would tell Detroit Tigers Pitcher Armondo Gallaraga and errant umpire Jim Joyce, whose incorrect call with two outs in the ninth inning cost Gallaraga an official perfect game, "Tough luck...! The 'human element' is as much a part of the fabric of the game as balls and bats. Baseball is not going to copy off of football and basketball and rely on some namsy pansy instant replay to get a call right at first base. The first call is ALWAYS the right one. It was good enough for Jimmie Foxx and Johnny Mize, so it is good enough for Jimmy Rollins and Johnny Damon!"
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| How baseball was MEANT to be! 1 |
Baseball progressives appreciate baseball tradition, but have grown increasingly frustrated with baseball traditionalists over the years. Progressives think that traditionalists are the driving forces behind keeping baseball in the stone ages, making Major League Baseball a Fred Flintstone in a world of George Jetsons in the form of the NFL, NBA, and even the NHL. When a progressive hears a traditionalist say, "Baseball is NOTHING like the NFL!" that person is thinking, "That is the PROBLEM!!!"
Baseball progressives are chomping at the bit for expanded use of instant replay, to correct more common mistakes made by (increasingly incompetent) umpires. The 20 second pitcher's clock, proposed in the college game, would be the best fundamental change to a sport since basketball incorporated the three point shot in 1979. A salary cap is long overdue as a sport in which only 8 teams have a prayer at reaching the World Series at the start of every season (the Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers, the top three remaining teams that have spent the most money - often the Angels, Cubs, White Sox, and then two teams that kicked butt with its farm system, such as the Tampa Bay Rays in recent years).
This group could be provoked into a bar fight with traditionalists after a few beers, one blown call, and another $100 million signing of the best player at a position by the New York Yankees. They are BEGGING the Donald Trumps of the world to pool together a couple of billion dollars and launch another USFL-like experiment of a new baseball league, having learned the lessons of the past for future success in hopes that MLB will respond to competitive pressures. The only "tradition" this group would get excited about is if MLB Commissioner and former Milwaukee Brewers Owner Bud Selig followed in the tradition of former commissioners Kenesaw Mountain Landis and Bart Giamatti (not that I personally share this view).
The Daily Hat Trick is: Without question, I am a baseball progressive. I enjoy baseball. I watch baseball. I travel four hours, several times per summer, to watch a Houston Astros series. But I am tired of a lot of the means by which baseball insists on fighting any kind of evolution involving technology or rule changes that would make the game more watchable.
My biggest concern is that the game is dying a slow death. Twenty five years ago, what happened in the World Series was front page news and water cooler conversation. Today, I am thrilled, like I met a new friend in a foreign country, when I run into anyone, in person, with whom I can simply talk a little baseball. Why? Because America, on the whole, does not give a damn about baseball anymore. The NFL has several regular season games with higher ratings than any of the five 2010 World Series games. Baseball was once America's pastime, now it caters to a niche of sports fans.
Bud Selig has to go! If Roger Goodell has a brother or Pete Rozelle or Paul Tagliabue have sons with similar DNA, those folks need to be given the keys to the MLB safe. It is going to take vision, outside the box thinking, and ingenuity to bring baseball back to the forefront of American sports. Its current leadership is tragically void of those qualities.
Dallas Cowboys Fans vs Dallas Cowboys Haters
Fans
The Dallas Cowboys: America's Team! Cowboys fans thrust their chests out with gridiron blue blood pride upon hearing, reading, or thinking of that moniker. Cowboys fans believe that the entire NFL revolves around their team. The road to the Super Bowl runs through Dallas every year. Tom Landry is a saint in Big D and Jerry Jones is a knight on a white horse, making sure that the Cowboys and everything pertaining to the Cowboys are bigger and better than the counterparts of the other 31 NFL teams. Anything short of a playoff appearance is unacceptable and anyone who is not on the Cowboys bandwagon is "just jealous".
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| Cowboys lovers and haters can agree on one thing! 2 |
Cowboys haters see red when they see the Cowboys' shades of blue and silver. This group would like to take the star off of the Cowboys' helmet and shove it...somewhere (this is a family show)! Tony Romo is a farce. Jerry Jones is a classless egomaniac. The new, billion dollar Cowboys Stadium is nothing more than a giant phallic symbol for Jones and Cowboys fans to compensate for deficiencies and insecurities in other areas. Every game that the Cowboys lose is a cause for celebration.
The Daily Hat Trick is: When I was a child, I liked the Cowboys. I liked Tony Dorsett, Danny White, Ed "Too Tall" Jones, and I thought Tom Landry brought a sense of quiet style and class to the sidelines.
Enter Jerry Jones. His first move: cast Tom Landry (who, at the time, was the only coach the Dallas Cowboys had ever had) out unceremoniously, like a cheap suit, after 29 years of coaching, 5 NFC championships, and 2 Super Bowl championships.
Let me say that I do respect Jerry Jones business acumen and his ability to maintain a perpetually competitive team. That is very difficult to do in the modern NFL. But I do not like what I perceive of his personality, arrogance, and sense of entitlement, which I think has trickled down to Cowboys fans. The Cowboys 2010 season has been a GREAT chapter for me in the storybook of this NFL season.
Pro-LeBrons vs Anti-LeBrons
There was no greater controversy in this past NBA offseason than the drama surrounding LeBron James and "The Decision". Of course, that decision was to leave the Cleveland Cavaliers, with whom the Ohio native spent the first seven years of his NBA career, leading the Cavaliers to heights the club and its fans had never experienced in the 40 year history of the team. When LeBron left Cleveland in the most public of fashions, on national television, the basketball world immediately spilt between Team LeBron and Team LeBum.
Pro-LeBron
No two Pro-LeBrons are identical, but you can bet your bottom dollar that they all have one thing in common: they are not Cavs fans. The LeBron crowd was thrilled to see King James "take his talents to South Beach" and join forces with All-Stars Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. They love watching LeBron. They cannot wait to see what astonishing feats The King will perform next on the hardwood. They mimic James' powder ritual before every pickup game. Anything short of a LeBron-Kobe matchup in the NBA Finals may trigger a hibernation-like depression that will not end until the next basketball season begins in late October.
Anti-LeBron
These guys are PISSED! There is no way to sugar coat it. The Anti-LeBrons come in two factions: Cavs fans who feel betrayed and basketball fans who feel that James is attempting to rig a championship by signing for less money to play with two superstars (isn't that the ultimate mark of a true team player focused on winning??).
The ire of Cavaliers fans is understandable. James is an Ohio native, raised in nearby Akron. He became a living god in Cleveland. He helped lead the Cavaliers to its first ever NBA Finals appearance in 2007. In each of his final two seasons, the Cavaliers held the top seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs. Cleveland appeared to have genuine cause for optimism to believe it was close to winning its first professional sports championship since the Cleveland Browns won the NFL Championship in 1964.
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| I'm sure he curls up with his millions in his mansion and cries himself to sleep every night. 3 |
The Daily Hat Trick is: I am Pro-Lebron. This is America. It is a free country. The NBA has very specific rules governing contracts and free agent transactions. James and the Heat followed all of the rules. The Heat planned, possibly up to two years in advance, to make their current roster a reality. James' contract with Cleveland had expired. I think the Heat, as they are, are going to offer great theater and entertainment in the NBA Playoffs this coming spring. I say "salud" to James and the Heat. Don't hate the player, hate the game!
Next week: Favre Apologists vs The People, Tired of Favre, Pro-BCS vs Pro-Playoff in college football, and Old Time Lakers Fan vs Old Time Celtics Fan
Don't forget to vote in today's fan polls!
1) Image from warrenhof.com
2) Image from thebattingadvantage.com
3) Image from music.bomvom.com
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