Quote:
Originally Posted by mgardner
On my way back to the seat from the restroom at the Phillies-Mets game today, I saw a couple donned in Mets apparel being harassed by Phillies faithful. Upon telling them to leave the Mets fans alone, they turned their anger towards me. (For the record, I was wearing a Phillies cap.) Fortunately, I was on my way back towards my seat so I did not have to endure their taunts for long. Apparently Phillies fans who stand up for Mets fans are no better than Mets fans themselves in the eyes of Philadelphia.
This is not, of course, the first time I have experienced such hostility coming from Philadelphia sports fans, but it got me wondering why they feel a necessity to be this way. Though I am (and have long been) a Phillies fan, I have a lot of respect for our biggest division rivals (as well as any other opposing team) and see no absolutely no problem with their fans showing their support. Why am I in the minority?
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If you want the kind of fans who would respect the fans of the opponents' team, you need to come to a football game during any Fall Saturday in College Station, TX. One of the friendliest fans anywhere. If you go there wearing your team's colors, heck, you'll get many Aggies to even offer you free beer and welcome you to their tailgate, so long as you're not a wise-ass about your team and treat both teams and both fandoms with respect.
As for Philly and its city-based private teams' fans... I've not seen it myself but I've heard way too many horror stories for me to accept that at least some of that has to be true. Why is it? Perhaps because Philly does have a problem of rude people...they're rude at the airport, at any other service-oriented place. It could also be that the city has more than its fair share of poor, uneducated folks for whom rooting for a city-based team counts for being "from Philly." It's their civic duty, so to speak. Me?-- I really don't care that much about any of the private franchises, they don't show much loyalty to a city and since so many AMericans (myself included) move so often from city to city, having one city's for-profit team as something to root for really doesn't add up for me. Now I'll say this though: if Cowboys and Eagles are playing, I'm going to root for Cowboys to lose, no matter what!
And I guess I do have a soft corner for my Houston-based teams (Rockets and Astros). May be it's that I didn't go to these sports growing up so I don't have any pride in any of those teams...may be that's what drives people to exaggerated fandom...the fact that their daddy took them to all the Phillies or the Eagles games. But getting drunk, thowing batteries on opposing team's players, having a loud potty-mouth, booing one's own team when they're down, etc... are just not activities I consider when I think of "good" fans.