Idiots Write About Sports

After the analysis comes the taunting…

Let us travel back in time to the heady, optimism-filled days of August 21, 2005. A young Red Sox fan named Beth comes to the Idiot Sports Weblog and reads an entry where I express dismay that I am unable to attend a Red Sox game without being subject to untold hassles, woes, and socially awkward interactions at the hands of drunkards and pop-offs wearing BoSox caps. Angered by my petty insistence on being allowed to enjoy attending a game I’ve paid good money to see, Beth leaves the following unkind message:

hey, i had been really enjoying this blog till now. all i can say, i guess, is enjoy losing in the first round of the postseason (maybe to us, again) for, what is it? the 10th time in a row? guess i’ll see you then.

Of course, the A’s did not make the playoffs this time around, a depressing turn of events that should, in no way, overshadow the team’s remarkable recovery from sub-.500 baseball.

Then again, I guess the A’s won just as many playoff games as Boston did this year, huh?

But we’ve gotten ahead of ourselves. Back again to August 21, at the time Beth leaves her impolite little taunt — the Red Sox are sitting atop the AL East with a record of 71-51. That’s good enough for a four-game lead over their hated rivals from New York. In subsequent post-taunting games, the Sox go 24-16 — a solid performance to be sure, but not enough to hold off the Yankees, who erase that four-game lead and wind up edging out Boston for the AL East title. Again. Of course, that 24-16 record does not account for any of Boston’s playoff games, in which the Red Sox won — oh, let’s see here, I’m quite terrible at math — zero games.

Now only someone who believes in tooth fairies, 86-year-old curses, and other such malarky would suggest that Beth’s ill-mannered words had any sort of cosmic, karmic impact on Boston losing its division lead and its first-round playoff matchup. Hell, I refuse to wear certain colored shirts depending on Oakland’s opponent, and even I don’t cotton to such nonsense. However, did Beth’s hurtful little screed add an extra does of enjoyment to Boston’s early exit from the playoffs?

Let me see if I can find the proper words to adequately answer that question.

Heh.

Heh… heh…. heh… ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha… snort… bwah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha…. gasp… hee hee hee hee….

Oh man, does it ever!

Ho boy… I’m going to need a minute or two to compose myself. Here… enjoy this strangely relevant musical track from the iTunes Music Store while I pull myself together.

Ah, but enough laughter at Beth’s expense. Let’s talk about something that isn’t so funny — leaving charities in the lurch.

I was taken aback by the ferocity of Beth’s response — largely because she never bothered to specify what prompted her to comment so rudely. (I have not ruled out general deficiency of character as a possible cause.) Judging by her own blog, she seems put out by the idea that anyone wouldn’t immediately recognize Red Sox fans as the kindest, gentlest, most bestest fans in the all the land. (Just a working theory here: maybe posting hateful taunts in strangers’ weblogs might run counter to that contention. I know — it’s crazy talk, but you might want to ponder it.) Or perhaps, she was offended by my characterization of the Boston fan-base as ill-mannered hooligans. Certainly, Beth paints a starkly different picture of the members of Red Sox Nation in this post, forwarded to me by an eagle-eyed Idiots weblog reader:

Over the next eight hours—Eight! Hours! Of nonstop terrible behavior!—we mercilessly terrorized the Fenway neighborhood, drinking steadily throughout…

…Then, we took our marauding to the Uno’s in Kenmore Square. Where we proceeded to be perhaps the most obnoxious group of people I’ve ever actually been seen with in a public place. I quickly reached two more conclusions during our Festival of Booze and Jokes in Poor Taste at the Uno’s, during which we scared at least one party of fellow diners into having their seat moved, prompted our waiter to finally simply stop coming back to our table, and laugh so hard together I thought at several points I might actually puke the handful of top-shelf Long Island Iced Teas I’d been guzzling…

…in much of our discourse, we also made actual, undeniable, complete asses of ourselves. At maximum volume. The subjects of our conversation were such that I’m really not sure I can repeat most of them here (or if I want to)—and yet we had these conversations anyway…OK, I’ll give you an example. One of the threads of discussion that made me laugh till I was weeping great snotty tears all over myself? Was about wife-beating. Tasteless enough for ya?. And did I meantion LOUDLY? In PUBLIC? With KIDS PRESENT NEARBY?

So you can see, my hurtful description was completely off base. I mean, I totally left out the part about spewing vulgarities in front of children. I’ll make sure to mention that in the future.

At any rate, I felt obligated to extend an olive branch to Beth. I offered to donate $150 to the the charity of her choice the next time I attended a Boston Red Sox game which didn’t end in A) fisticuffs; B) mayhem; or C) some incident in which a half-in-the-bag Southie mouths off to me because the color of my hat displeases him. I made this offer because:

1) I thought it would be a fun running gag that we could all enjoy. Imagine next spring when I’m at an A’s-Boston game that doesn’t end in a trail of tears — y’all could have a nice guffaw at my expense. And I would gladly write out that check, as $150 seems to be a small price to pay to be able to enjoy a baseball game without someone in a faded Nomar jersey vomiting on my sneakers.

2) We should all strive to be more charitable in this day and age, even under the bold new form of charity that I’ve invented known as Spite Giving. Sneer if you will, but this is going to get me a Nobel Prize one of these days.

3) There is an unfortunate propensity on the Internet these days to commit drive-by-postings, in which some intellectually vacant troll goes from blog to blog posting snide comments to any post that offends his or her delicate sensibilities. There’s no interest in engaging the blog author in spirited debate or participating in a free and open exchange of opposing viewpoints — the drive-by-poster is merely interested in spewing insults before retreating to the safety of anonymity. And, if I may drop my usual veneer of ironic detachment for a moment, I find this form of cowardice intolerable. A person who spends their time scanning the Internet for places to spew invective and lacks the backbone to defend what they have to say is not worth a good goddamn in my book. Such a person is a coward, a recreant, a lilly-livered chicken, and the faster we can expose and dismiss such behavior, the better for all concerned.

The subsequent radio silence from Beth since her post of August 21 leads me to conclude that she is the sort of person described above. Which is disappointing, really, though hardly unexpected.

So I’m afraid we’ll have to table my $150 challenge for now. We’ll revisit it during the 2006 season and hopefully, we’ll find someone with more stones, a better sense of humor and a less staggering sense of self-importance than Beth who will make me put my money where my mouth is.

In the meantime, I don’t see why charities should have to suffer as a result of Beth’s craven silence. I’ve written out a check for $100 to Noah’s Wish, an organization that does excellent work rescuing and sheltering animals affected by disasters in North America. You can read all about their Hurricane Katrina efforts here, and if you have a few extra bucks you want to kick their way, I’m sure they wouldn’t object.

I was going to make my donation in Beth’s name, but since she didn’t sign her last name on her comment, I went with “On behalf of cowardly Red Sox bloggers” instead. I figured that was more or less the same thing. See how I’m helpfully pointing out the memo line in the picture below?

I think that pretty much sums up my feelings about drive-by-bloggers.

wow. you're insane.

Hey, what was it you were saying about an open exchange of ideas between commenters, versus "drive-by-postings, in which some intellectually vacant troll goes from blog to blog posting snide comments"?

"wow. you're insane."

Yeah. You know, from you? Not quite the withering put-down you probably intended.

"Hey, what was it you were saying about an open exchange of ideas between commenters, versus "drive-by-postings, in which some intellectually vacant troll goes from blog to blog posting snide comments"?"

I fear your response lacks the subtlety to be appreciated by Beth, Lisa. Better to go with a sophisitcated, urbane response like "you're stupid" or "you're insane."

How about "You're funny"?

And did you notice she said the Colts suck?

http://confessionalpoet.typepad.com/cursed_to_first/2005/10/dear_fox_sports.html

The Colts "suck"?????

Maybe if the Colts rented out a party boat, got really drunk, and made jokes about wife-beating -- rather than concentrating on not losing football games -- they would suck slightly less.

Naaaaah.

Posted by Jason at October 13, 2005 10:05 PM

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