Sports, it is said, are a reflection of society. We are meant to see our current moments in how we engage with our sports teams’ trappings and travailing. I contend it is a point in favor of The Times In Which We Live that the concept of a wide, many-laned superhighway down which we roll our respective sports hopes and/or dreams has gained significant support in recent times. 

It is not that feverishly clinging to what I can only best describe as “Super 70’s Sports Brain” – a mode of thought that seemingly measures the worthiness of an era of sports history inversely by the length of the skirt of that era’s airline cocktail waitress, or how much you were allowed to smoke during surgery – is rankly or uniquely objectionable; one of the dirty little secrets of fandom is all of it is in some way or another unhealthy, harmful, and/or illogical. It is good, though, that we now have a diverse buffet of ways through which to imbibe the particular brain poison that leads a person in their 30’s to having thoughts, opinions, and feelings about not whether a 15 year old from thousands of miles away chooses to allow a corrupt and empire-complicit system to lift him and his family from out of poverty, but that he do so for my team, which is of course motivated purely by goodness and charity.

With the preamble aside though it is time we admit that, as with all things, some ways are better than others. That of course means, crucially, that some ways are worse than others. That is what this blog post is about. Let’s get down to it. The Five Worst Ways to Fan, ranked in ascending order:

5) The Professional Athlete Snitch Tagger

The internet exists for arguing. When Steven Internet invented it in 1979 he did so because his brother was being a dumbass about music (he thought Black Sabbath would be fine without Ozzy) , and Steve wanted a public square in which to flagellate him. That was all well and good, as arguing about pointless stuff is one of the only currents through which we can connect ourselves as a species with our farthest ancestors, who argued about stuff like caves, sticks, and what Gorg was wearing that day. 

As sports fans we argue constantly, ceaselessly, about things that do not matter. At all. What does matter is that we do so on a semi-level playing field. For you to fight your own fight. A professional athlete snitch tagger subverts this ethical code by seeking to squash an opposing view not by logic, passion, or humor, but by simply squashing it through the summoning of a celestial celebrity body into the proceedings. It’s weak, lame, and shows you can’t eat the meal you cooked for yourself. 

4) The Professional Athlete Threatener

Look, pal. Whatever amount of grief, anguish, or emotional distress you feel at a sports team’s failings just be certain that the athlete responsible for it feels exponentially worse. Using social media to scream (often wildly racist and/or homophobic) threats at that player isn’t going to get your second wife Deborah to start talking to you again, and it won’t lose all that weight you’ve put on since you went to state Senior Year. Your life is a mess because of your choices, buddy, not because a player gave up a three-run home run to literally Aaron Judge, who is the big robot monster from the first THOR movie that shoots lasers out of its eyes sent from Asgard to punish baseballs for some reason.

Sports are at their most special when athletes and fans build connections. Due to a variety of factors – socioeconomic, political, race, culture – those connections feel increasingly rare and difficult to develop. So you logging on to threaten an athlete’s family and/or scream obscenities at them doesn’t just reflect poorly on you as a person, it makes the experience worse for all of us! Cut it out!

3) The (Literal) Minor League Obsessive

I get it. I do. It’s fun to dream about the future. It’s fun to track your team’s young talent, read breathless reports online invoking Barry Bonds But He Can Also Pitch-style write ups about a 16 year old in Rancho Cucamonga or whatever. The future is unknowable! It can be anything! That’s very comforting, particularly as a Mariners fan when the present is so often…….well yeah.

That said I am begging y’all to stop two things. Firstly please quit grafting the highest of possible expectations onto these kids. They are literally kids! They belong in high school, learning biology and learning to grapple with a complex, difficult world and their place in it. Instead they are often being thrust into the role of savior, not only for a sports organization but generations of family forced to live in poverty by [REDACTED] and [REDACTED]. Please allow them to be kids, and quit heaping the pressure born of a franchise’s decades of ineptitude on children who were not even born when that ineptitude was already old enough to buy alcohol.

Secondly, WOW please stop commenting on their physical development. It is DEEPLY weird and uncomfortable. Again, children, teenagers. Behavior like this anywhere outside of sports is (rightly) deeply stigmatized. It’s gross! Knock it off!

2) The Organizational Patsy

This feels like it may be remedial but also seemingly needs clarification so let’s get it out there: As fans, we all want our team to succeed. Believe it or not, expressing frustration about choices, aspects, or figures within the organization does not invalidate that desire for success! This is called nuance and, while it can be scary, it is part of being a grown up.

My old website did not allow talk about religion but this new one has no such restrictions so I can say I recently listened to an interview with author Brian McClaren in which he discusses ideas of faith, and the ways faith develops. McClaren laments that faith – specifically that of modern evangelical Christianity in this case- is taught as “a simple concept, by simple people”. We can apply the same concepts of development and simplicity to sports and the way we engage with it. 

These are teams of players we like to root for to win with our friends! It is a powerful connection to history, heritage, community, and space. There are many, many good, meaningful, and worthwhile aspects that make sports fandom a rewarding experience. That said these organizations are also money-printing presses owned by oligarchical billionaires! In many ways they represent the height of classist hedonism that defines modern American life! They are filled to the very brim with dysfunction, corruption, greed, and the same workplace frustrations that define our own work lives. They are both these things simultaneously. I am begging many of you to understand that throwing yourselves blindly in support of your sports team makes you open to supporting many, many things you most likely strongly disapprove of. 

We can hold rooting for our teams while decrying their failings in tension, but it requires a level of thinking and intent far beyond the simple, or the authoritarian. We can do it. You can do it. Let’s do it.

1) The Insufferable, Preening Martyr

This fan, woof. This fan is the worst. Most likely a late 30’s/early 40’s Child of the Moneyball Era, this fan is looking to absolve themself from the fallout of those times by spending an undue and frankly embarrassing amount of time and energy trying to influence a younger generation of fans. It’s unseemly, lame, and far, far past its sell-by date.

There’s a scene in HIGH FIDELITY (2000) in which the owners of a decrepit vinyl store are confronted because they won’t sell a particular record to a customer, despite him very clearly desperately wants to purchase it:

Louis : Now why would you sell it to me and not to him?

Barry : Because you’re not a geek, Louis.

Louis : You guys are snobs.

Dick : No, we’re not.

Louis : Yeah, seriously, you’re totally elitist. You feel like the unappreciated scholars, so you shit onto people who know lesser than you.

Rob , Barry , Dick : No!

Louis : Which is everybody…

Rob , Barry , Dick : Yeah…

Louis : That’s so sad.

THAT, folks, is this fan. Simultaneously self-loathing for even still taking the time to participate and self-exalting that they are benevolently spreading their pearls of wisdom before an unworthy and unseeing horde. This fan should have stopped years ago. This fan will stop, and stop soon, they say. This fan just needs to finish out the season. Just needs to see if this is the year they win it all. Then they can rest. They’ve earned it, after all.

PATHETIC. GET OUT. GO PRETEND TO UNDERSTAND AND ENJOY MOBY DICK. This fan is the worst, and this is the worst way to fan. Thank you.