Takes One to Know One

In an interesting bit of timing, as I wrote a blog entry yesterday about spiting the All Star vote, there was a columnist in Philadelphia, John Gonzalez, someone who seemingly gets paid for his time, submitting a column about how obnoxious Boston sports fans have become.  Let the irony of a columnist from Philly complaining about obnoxious fans settle in and I’ll be right with you.

If there’s a reason to end interleague play, this is it. The next few days figure to test our collective patience and sanity. Brace yourself: Boston fans are coming.

The Phillies will begin a three-game series with the Red Sox on Tuesday. Over the course of the season, the Fightin’s do all sorts of promotional giveaways, everything from hats to bobbleheads. This would be a good time for a different kind of freebie: maybe noise-canceling headphones or, if those aren’t enough and more drastic measures are needed, surplus World War II-era cyanide pills. One bite and the suffering will be over

I’m not here to argue that Boston fans aren’t obnoxious.  I fully admit to yesterday’s entry about voting against the Yankees being a bit obnoxious in terms of the spitefulness of it.  I see obnoxious fans at Fenway plenty.  I think, above all, we can admit that every fan base of every team in every aspect of sports has obnoxious fans as part of their fan base.  Doesn’t mean those fans define the base but we all know they exist.

Let me introduce you to the opening line of John Gonzalez’s bio on philly.com:

John Gonzalez is a local product who was exiled for a time and forced to live among cretins in Dallas and Boston

In my mind, Gonzalez mispronounces the word cretin like Randall does in Monsters Inc.

But I digress.

The entire piece is essentially a tremendous whinefest about how fans of Boston sports teams have it really good right now (damn skippy!) and that, by default, makes us obnoxious.  He picks on the quote of a father who talks of how he and his son have been to all the parades over these last seven years and stand in the same spot for each one.  Really?  That’s the best you have?

See, I wouldn’t even mind had this guy given some genuine examples of obnoxiousness.  You know, like intentionally throwing up on a little girl, chucking batteries at a player, booing an injured player while he’s motionless on the ground, or just being so generally obnoxious that security at the park goes automatically into tase mode when one of your fan base steps on the field.  But, no, the worst he gives us is a father creating a happy and memorable moment with his son.  The nerve of the guy, huh?

If this piece came out of Kansas City or Seattle, I probably would have read it over, chuckled and forgot about it.  But for someone from Philadelphia, who covers Philadelphia sports, to call another fan base obnoxious just because they have the audacity to be happy about the success of their teams…well if it wasn’t so pathetic I guess it could be entertaining.

I know some Boston sports fans who will be in Philly for these next three games.  I hope the level of their obnoxiousness doesn’t match that of the fans of the home team but I also hope they are sporting the Boston colors proudly.  I know they will be and there isn’t anything obnoxious about that.