Janie BoschmaI can’t believe the Cleveland Indians pulled a Chicago Cubs.
Then again, I’m fairly certain the Indians are just the American League equivalent of the Cubs, based on the fact that no matter how much momentum they may have in their favor, they always find a way to choke in playoff situations.
Either way, I was hoping and praying (both scarcities in my typical daily routine) that the Indians and Colorado Rockies would face off in the World Series just to see Bud Selig stumble through fake congratulations to both teams like he’s selling them a defective used car.
Basically, the MLB, as well as every other professional and college sports league in America (NFL, NBA, NCAA), only care about major-market teams playing in championships. Money makes the world go ’round.
Leagues don’t want small-market championship contenders simply because television ratings go down and, as a result, the respective league is left with less money than it could’ve had with “higher-profile” teams playing.
The MLB’s profits from the Series would skyrocket if there was (god-forbid) a Cubs-Red Sox match-up rather than the current Rockies-Red Sox tilt for two reasons.
First, Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston and New York are all major markets. Teams in any sports league from those types of cities rake in more cash than the Twins and Brewers do in a given year combined.
The second reason is that professional sports leagues only care about the fan that pays $150 for a ticket, gets drunk in the parking lot outside the stadium and doesn’t go in until around the sixth inning. In a nutshell, the MLB, NFL and NBA only care about bandwagon, fair-weather fans because those are the people caught on the proverbial fence.
Yes, that’s right – the MLB doesn’t care about fans that watch baseball because they just enjoy the game. Think of it as kind of an election, with MLB playing the part of the politician.
Politicians don’t go around and focus all their time and energy on the people they already know are going to vote the party line no matter what. They go out and try to rope in undecided or single-issue voters.
Now I understand that any team coming out of nowhere to surprise everyone has a given bandwagon (see 2006 Saints or 2006 Twins), but those fans are typically located in the team’s geographical region or are sports analysts for FOX or ESPN.
Case in point: How many sports fans know the Rockies have only lost once in their last 22 games compared to the amount of fans that know the possible replacements for Joe Torre’s vacant Yankee managerial job? Which one seems like the bigger story?
Considering the Yankees got rocked in the playoffs, I’m willing to bet that what the Rockies have done is a little bit more remarkable.
But because it is a smaller-market team with less mass appeal to casual fans, ESPN and every other network in the United States choose to go on 24-hour Torre Watch.
The fans they care about are the ones who couldn’t remember who won the World Series last year, yet somehow have been fans their whole lives once the Cubs, Sox or Yankees find a way to the final curtain.
I know this is frustrating for most real fans of sports who have neglected girlfriends because of a late-inning meltdown (strike one), sat speechless and locked up in a friend’s dorm room after a game-winning 56-yard field goal (strike two) or have some player’s name or statistic they never want to be reminded of again (1998, 24-10 . sit down).
A real fan shouldn’t be happy with anyone jumping on any bandwagon and claiming they’ve been there for their whole lives. It’s not fun listening to n00bs gloat when they only watch a team through the ups but don’t support it through the downs.
But we should understand that the leagues we support don’t care if we’re in the stands – we’ve been there our whole lives and won’t be leaving anytime soon, so why would they spend their time and energy keeping us satisfied when we’re just happy to see the sport being played?
The Red Sox are in the Series, as many predicted, but the Rockies’ success was a bombshell the size of Dumbledore’s recent switch from offense to defense (let the nut job conspiracy theories begin.).
In the end, I’ve decided I can get as upset as I want about this, but like a severe political party loyalist, my chances of getting what I want are extremely slim because I’ll still be sitting in the stands when the lights go out.
