Don Tiny wrote:
Is there some governing body that rates fandom levels. or is there a point system I'm not aware of.
I started thinking about this again after I talked to a guy the other night who claimed to be a huge NASCAR fan. When he didn’t know they used to race on the beach at Daytona and he couldn’t tell me who won the last race at Bristol, I had to start questioning how much of a “fan” he really was. How can a guy who doesn’t even give a shit know more than you do about something you describe as your “passion”?
When I’m passionate about something I have a voracious appetite to find out everything I can about it. It seems to me people are getting more ignorant and more opinionated at the same time. Rick made reference to my age having something to do with the way I view baseball. He’s correct about that, no doubt. To some degree we’re all products of when and where we grew up.
The late sixties and on through the 70s were my formative years and they coincided with the end of the post-WWII “golden age” of baseball. I can remember memorizing the numbers that were assigned to alphabetical listings of pitchers in the Wrigley Field scorecard. I don’t say that because I think it was any great thing. I did just it because I was bored between innings. I’m sure other kids may have done it too. Now they won’t let you be bored between innings. You’re constantly bombarded by some kind of audio or visual stimulus. Even at the most old-fashioned ballpark, Wrigley Field. It really doesn’t lend itself to the creation of a thoughtful fan. A kid today has to go out of his way to become an intelligent fan. That’s why someone like immessedup17 stands out to me. I could talk to twenty or thirty guys his age on the street without running into a fan like him.
That’s the thing I enjoy about this forum. Motherfuckers is passionate. You’ve got all different guys, different backgrounds, different ages, but they all care about something enough to spend time arguing about it. If that’s a “meatball”, I’ll wear the label. I may think Doug EP is an asshat for liking Joe Satriani but I respect the hell out of him for being passionate enough about it to think I’m a douche because I don’t.