FanNation - The Republic of Sport

This is my 100^th posting on Fannation and before I get down to business, I would like to thank everyone who has viewed, commented on, ridiculed, dismissed, and/or enjoyed all of my previous jibber jabber.  I hope I am provided the opportunity to provide you my ramblings even if you click on it by mistake and quickly hit the back button.  Either way....Thanks.

What I would like to discuss is the topic of sports frauds, more importantly and specifically a problem that affects many of us being in the form of fraud fans.  Now, I am not talking the general bandwagon rider, the frontrunner that shows up when a local team is headed to the championship, then disappears as quickly as they came.  No, I am talking about those guys who for no good reason choose to root for teams outside their jurisdiction as fans.  Dallas Cowboy fans not from Texas, never been to Texas, and in fact were born and raised in places like Philly, New York, and wherever these cells have cropped up are prime examples of the type of fraud I'm talking about.

My uncle is one of those guys, and is a fraud apparently through genetics.  You see, my grandfather was a Green Bay Packer fan from way back and in turn taught his New Jersey born children to be Packer fans and rabid ones at that.  He never stepped foot inside the state of Wisconsin and although I commend his passing down of the New Jersey Packer fan torch, it calls into question why he failed to choose either the New York Giants or Philadelphia Eagles as his rooting focus.  So while it would appropriately appear that I have an unusual distaste for the misguided and singled out Cowboy fan, I have been touched personally by its fraudulent grip.  It doesn't matter that the fraudulence was passed hereditarily, that simply means that the travesty has outlasted the original generation.  You should have heard my cousins gush over Favre....I threw up a little in my mouth.

Fraud fans should feel ashamed for turning their back on their hometown brethren.  To up and decide to go against your neighbors and in many cases your family and root for a team halfway across the country for no other reason than they won a championship, or you like the colors, or you wanted to be different is disingenuous and does a disservice to the sport you follow.  Regardless of where you live, the sport you follow, franchises are built on the following of their fanatics. 

To disregard the home team for another ultimately makes the league weaker and although the internet and satellite television has made it easier the energy one from Philly could put into the Eagles truly outweighs that put into the Dallas Cowboys.  The difference of this energy multiplied by all of the frauds could be the difference in say, the Eagles obtaining a big time playmaker and raising ticket prices versus only raising ticket prices.  I am curious to see how many fans bailed on the Detroit Lions for other squads during the Matt Millen era and how long it would have taken to get rid of the guy if all of the fans, current and former, would have pulled their energies together to enforce change.

I understand that fans will travel.  They'll move, migrate, and disembark on life journeys that will lead them away from the homestead.  That does not however forgive them of their duties to their home team.  If a guy from Kansas City moves to Philadelphia I would expect him to be a Chiefs fan.  He was born there and that is the way the natural order of things works.  If he would come from KC and be a Niners fan, well, now we have a fraud on our hands.

I have kept this to football, but it can be seen in baseball, basketball (college and pro), and it would be seen in hockey if anyone cared.  Red Sox Nation is not a loyal fan base but for the most part it is an epidemic of frauds that exploded when they finally won the World Series.  Same goes for Lakers fans outside of SoCal, they wanted to identify with Magic and Kareem, Shaq and Kobe, when in reality they should have been rooting for the Wizards, or Warriors.  C'mon, if you are gonna be a fraud, love the Clippers because they need it.  Right here in Philly, people didn't become Nugget fans because A.I. was traded to Denver.  No, they remained loyal to their team and saw no reason to change their rooting interests.  They were Sixers fan before Iverson, and they'll be Sixers fans long after even the youngest members of the team retire.

In response to the freakin' fraudulent fools out there, I am implementing the "Root for your Roots" rule.  If you don't come from a city (or surrounding metropolitan area), there is no excuse to root for that team.  You are deemed a fraud and a detriment to the sport.  Exceptions for those who live in places like Boise or Utah where the professional ranks haven't fully been established; however I would say that a reasonable link must be made to a franchise for rooting interest's sake.  Flip-Flopping is prohibited.

So for all the non-frauds in the world, keep up the good work.  You are part of the foundation in which fandom and sport are founded upon.  Pass on your roots to your children and reproduce accordingly.  Discredit frauds and their propaganda that they spread with tongues of deceit, they are of an ill kind that will only hinder the sports-bound soul from total immersion in one's team.  Never doubt, even if your team is the Detroit Lions, for your loyalty will pay off in one form or another.  As a life long Eagles fan, being born after Philadelphia won the 1960 Championship, I wear my fandom as a badge of honor, and a tutelage to my fellow brothers. 

Did the Philadelphia Eagles invent the game of football?  Read about it at http://www.sportssimpleton.blogspot.com/.  It's free so go right ahead and read it twice just for fun since you won't find it anywhere else.