The McBournie Minute: Let’s go, Phillies!

I feel like crap right now. There’s a pretty good chance it was my meal last night of cheese fries and chili, washed down with some Mountain Dew and vodka, but for the sake of my argument, let’s go with ALCS Game 7’s results last night as the cause. Bryan Schools will probably have more comprehensive reviews of the game, so let’s just stick with the fans.

I hate Tampa Bay fans. Say whatever you want about the team, those guys proved they’ve got what it takes this season again and again. However, their fans simply do not. For pretty much the entire season, the Rays were in first place in the American League east, yet they couldn’t fill the 36,048 seats at Tropicana Field all season long, save for when the Boston Red Sox were in town.

Then suddenly when the playoffs come around, the Rays have a huge fan base and everyone in Florida has been a lifelong fan. They donned their crazy wigs, painted their faces, some even altered their not-so-visible hairstyles to show the support they had only begun to lend hours earlier. They started talking trash and acting like they deserve to win because it has been so long for them. Folks, 10 years in baseball may as well be a blink of an eye for some teams.

The Chicago Cubs, for example, have now hit the century mark on their World Series drought. The Red Sox famously ended their curse in 2004, they had gone 86 years without a ring.

Every true fan hates bangwagoneers. Boston’s recent success this decade has added this element to the tried and true Sox fans, the ones who know what it is to watch a team all season long. The ones who can’t get into their home stadium because it has been sold out for years. The ones who travel to other stadiums (like Baltimore) to watch their team play there, and enjoy a home field advantage away from home. These are real fans. Even Yankees fans will watch their team implode all season long. The problem with Tampa Bay is that they are all bandwagoneers.

There was a moment in last night’s game that really exemplified this for me. Late in the game, there was a shot of two fans. One was wearing a faded and beaten Sox hat, the other was wearing a shiny new visor emblazoned with the “TB” logo with a ray next to it. The visor was probably bought earlier that day, it might as well have still had the tag on it.

So the Sox aren’t going to the World Series this year. I can live with that. Perhaps it will root out some of the bandwagoneers that have been in our ranks since 2004. Perhaps those people will put down their Sox hats and don a Rays hat instead. Maybe this will allow the Red Sox Nation to re-think its open-door immigration policy, and maybe the rich pseudo-fans will stop going to games in Boston, so the Fenway Faithful can once again worship in their Mecca.

Quality of teams (and my obvious preference for the American League) aside, the fans of Philadelphia are more deserving, as they watch their team try to break the fabled Curse of the 1993 World Series Loss to the Toronto Blue Jays.