Major League Baseball's midsummer classic was on last night, and once again the National League got stomped. It sold out, but this is not any sign of its popularity, rather the number of corporate sponsors pumping dollars into what I'm afraid is a dying sport. Those aren't fans in those sits, doing the wave and eating brats. They're employees.
In an interview by Dan Patrick on ESPN Radio, MLB Commissioner Bud Selig said that baseball was more popular than ever. Somehow I doubt this is true. When talking to other sports fans and baseball is brought up, the general reaction is that baseball is about on par with golf as a spectator sport, and just above bowling for athletic ability. It saddens me that our National Past-Time, even when injected with performance enhancing drugs and amphetamines, barely rates a yawn from today's sports fans.
To be sure, baseball has its fans. What it doesn't have, which other sports (football in particular) have, are the non-fans bullied in to following a sport they're too afraid to admit they don't like. I'm talking about the guy who goes to work Monday morning and isn't talking about Sunday's games. "Dude, you didn't see the Raiders game yesterday?" No, he was busy painting his war game miniatures and watching the Stargate marathon he Tivoed from the night before. To some, this might seem a reasonable way to enjoy a Sunday afternoon. To a football fan, this guy is a fag. "What are you, queer?" He might be, but the insinuation isn't that there is something wrong with being queer, but that there is definitely something wrong with not watching football. And so each week this guy feels compelled to follow a sport that has been out of his life since high school; a time when bullying and football were most likely synonymous. Everntually, his web browser's anime and manga bookmarks are slowly replaced by fantasy football sites. The half naked woman with the cool sword and dragon he had as his desktop background is gone; in its place is the logo of the team he's pretty sure he's supposed to follow. And every Monday morning he turns down the World of Warcraft podcast he's been listening to for two years so he can eavesdrop on the guys and their talk about Sunday's game. All so he won't be a fag.
Because of this cruel bullying, this demeaning of people with different interests and hobbies, football has become the most popular sport in America. Rather than appeal to people with the precision, skill, team work, strategy and tactics football demonstrates, fans resort to name-calling, shunning, and public humiliation to convert the masses to their cause. So why can't Baseball have fags, too?
These non-fans, or fags, account for 90% of a sports popularity and revenue. Wrestling has employed the tactics of football, and look how far it's come in the past twenty years: from Saturday morning cartoon for 8 year olds, to tits and beer for white trash across the country. It's what happens when Pop Culture meets Sports. It doesn't matter if you really like something, or even if it's any good. The important thing is that you buy it and show it to everyone, so they know you've bought it. God help you if you didn't buy it. Just ask Rv. Fred Phelps, God sends fags straight to hell whether they're homosexual or not.
For baseball, the sport I love, I've experimented with this method. When I ask people if they like baseball they usually say, "Baseball? It's so boring!" And I reply, "What? Are you a fucking idiot?" It is both demeaning and legitimate. But as most people are fucking idiots, and don't really mind being called one, it has had little to no impact. I won't go the fag route, since they'd probably say "No, I watch football." So I'm going to try for "What? Are you a bitch?" I suspect basketball already has claim to that one, but if the last NBA final is any indication, they're either not using it properly or it doesn't work.
Perhaps the real reason baseball is dying isn't because we haven't bullied the fags into our sport, rather we are the fags being bullied out of ours. Our numbers are dramatically being culled by football, basketball, wrestling and their cavemen supporters. I say it's time for a change. I say their is nothing greater than a 12 to 6 curveball, or a perfectly turned 6-4-3 doubleplay. I say we fire the corporate dicks sitting in our seats, eating our brats, drinking our beer. I say we beat the cavemen at their own game, and make them all our bitches.
In an interview by Dan Patrick on ESPN Radio, MLB Commissioner Bud Selig said that baseball was more popular than ever. Somehow I doubt this is true. When talking to other sports fans and baseball is brought up, the general reaction is that baseball is about on par with golf as a spectator sport, and just above bowling for athletic ability. It saddens me that our National Past-Time, even when injected with performance enhancing drugs and amphetamines, barely rates a yawn from today's sports fans.
To be sure, baseball has its fans. What it doesn't have, which other sports (football in particular) have, are the non-fans bullied in to following a sport they're too afraid to admit they don't like. I'm talking about the guy who goes to work Monday morning and isn't talking about Sunday's games. "Dude, you didn't see the Raiders game yesterday?" No, he was busy painting his war game miniatures and watching the Stargate marathon he Tivoed from the night before. To some, this might seem a reasonable way to enjoy a Sunday afternoon. To a football fan, this guy is a fag. "What are you, queer?" He might be, but the insinuation isn't that there is something wrong with being queer, but that there is definitely something wrong with not watching football. And so each week this guy feels compelled to follow a sport that has been out of his life since high school; a time when bullying and football were most likely synonymous. Everntually, his web browser's anime and manga bookmarks are slowly replaced by fantasy football sites. The half naked woman with the cool sword and dragon he had as his desktop background is gone; in its place is the logo of the team he's pretty sure he's supposed to follow. And every Monday morning he turns down the World of Warcraft podcast he's been listening to for two years so he can eavesdrop on the guys and their talk about Sunday's game. All so he won't be a fag.
Because of this cruel bullying, this demeaning of people with different interests and hobbies, football has become the most popular sport in America. Rather than appeal to people with the precision, skill, team work, strategy and tactics football demonstrates, fans resort to name-calling, shunning, and public humiliation to convert the masses to their cause. So why can't Baseball have fags, too?
These non-fans, or fags, account for 90% of a sports popularity and revenue. Wrestling has employed the tactics of football, and look how far it's come in the past twenty years: from Saturday morning cartoon for 8 year olds, to tits and beer for white trash across the country. It's what happens when Pop Culture meets Sports. It doesn't matter if you really like something, or even if it's any good. The important thing is that you buy it and show it to everyone, so they know you've bought it. God help you if you didn't buy it. Just ask Rv. Fred Phelps, God sends fags straight to hell whether they're homosexual or not.
For baseball, the sport I love, I've experimented with this method. When I ask people if they like baseball they usually say, "Baseball? It's so boring!" And I reply, "What? Are you a fucking idiot?" It is both demeaning and legitimate. But as most people are fucking idiots, and don't really mind being called one, it has had little to no impact. I won't go the fag route, since they'd probably say "No, I watch football." So I'm going to try for "What? Are you a bitch?" I suspect basketball already has claim to that one, but if the last NBA final is any indication, they're either not using it properly or it doesn't work.
Perhaps the real reason baseball is dying isn't because we haven't bullied the fags into our sport, rather we are the fags being bullied out of ours. Our numbers are dramatically being culled by football, basketball, wrestling and their cavemen supporters. I say it's time for a change. I say their is nothing greater than a 12 to 6 curveball, or a perfectly turned 6-4-3 doubleplay. I say we fire the corporate dicks sitting in our seats, eating our brats, drinking our beer. I say we beat the cavemen at their own game, and make them all our bitches.
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