The Pecan Park Eagle

“I’d rather catch a baseball than a dad gum cold.”

Maybe it’s the weather. Maybe it’s my age. Maybe it’s just the bad luck of being somewhere someone else sneezed at just the wrong time for me. Or maybe it’s just life as we know it on Planet Pollution. Whatever it was, I came down with an upper respiratory infection Monday night that has taken me through an initial loss of voice, sore throat, coma-like sleep, and now the purgation of phlegm that feels like gravel that’s been first run through a trough of molasses. I think I’m on the upside of things now, but I’m still having trouble staying awake for long periods of time. And don’t worry, I’m not likely to show up anyplace you might be going until the middle of next week.

Good old Vick’s Vaporub. It may not really help you get well, but it still makes you think it’s helping. Just open the bottle and rub a little under your nose. And hey – I’m on the road again.

Just a note on the obnoxious visiting fans. Bill Hickman is a SABR friend of mine and a devoted Chicago Cubs fan – and nothing like the clowns who show up at Minute Maid Park wearing Cubs gear. Here’s what Bill had to say and how I answered, in case you missed it:

“Just a reminder that stereotyping is always dangerous. This Cubs fan is hardly a Yuppy. I know plenty of other Cub fans who are older and have been through the Cubs’ travails for a number of years as well. We don’t go to the ballpark to get soused or throw beer on anyone. We simply root for the team which represents our hometown, just as the Houston fans so passionately do.” … Bill Hickman, Chicago Cubs fan.

“Thanks, Bill, for stepping up to the plate for Chicago and all its Cub fans on the North Side. (I never met any Cub fans on the South Side.) I was remiss in my utter failure to point out that all Cub fans making the road trip to Houston are not rude or falling down drunk – and that includes the fan that brought the “cursed” sign with him to a game here three years ago. He was just carrying out his private act of hope in the mire of historic despair.

“Any Houston fan who could meet you or a number of other people I know from Chicago would have to back off the totality of their issue with Cub fans as loose cannons. Unfortunately, that would not stop the harm to Chicago’s image that is caused by too large a number of the drunken idiots who throw on Cub Jerseys and come to the games in Houston. Those are the folks causing the stereotyping.

“John Q. Public isn’t going to spend this much time sorting out the good from the bad, the acceptable from the unacceptable.” – Bill McCurdy, Houston Astros fan and blogger-in-charge at The Pecan Park Eagle Press.

It helps me to get well to know that baseball has fans like Bill Hickman in Chicago, Bud Kane in St. Louis, Mike Moran in Los Angeles, and Bob Dorrill in Houston. I could name many others in pretty close to all the MLB cities, but we would be here all day.

Bill’s right. We need to be more careful not to stereotype any city for the rude behavior of some fans. It’s the downside to all the easy access that we fans have to MLB jerseys and caps today. If you’ve got the money, they will sell the gear and the image of any city to any jackass who steps up and plunks down the cash.

Have a great Memorial Day weekend, everybody. I’ll see you back here tomorrow unless I slip back into a coma

Tags: stereotyping fans

This entry was posted on May 25, 2012 at 5:05 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.