Some fans are only around for the victory parade.
“Not even Punxsutawney Phil’s shadow could save us from this madness that is the worst time of the football year”
…. Jerome Solomon, Houston Chronicle, Friday, March 7, 2014, Section C, Page 1.
Yesterday, Jerome Solomon was writing about the long arduous time that in our words sweeps like a harrowing to a tediously boring rope bridge of thought for football fans and commentators over the span of time that separates Super Bowl Sunday from the May 8th draft day. We covered this same subject the other day here at The Eagle in our “What’s Wrong with this Picture?” column, but from the perspective that all this football talk was heating up during the NBA season and as MLB was gearing up for spring training – at a time we traditionally have thought of football being in their own off-season until the teams return to their own pre-season camps in August.
Solomon’s point probably overrules our more naive or less clear perspective that any major human endeavor, particularly in sports, can be 100% divided into seasons and off-seasons. Only the detached and lesser involved corporate fans are capable of that kind of spacing. If it’s something we have given our hearts to, the participation of our interests in an organized sport is pretty much of a 24/7, 12-months a year thing. We will always have the time of the year that is given over to scheduled play, but then the rest of the year is spent on that rope bridge, watching our team as fans do what we hope they will do to make our club better during the next schedule of games.
There’s also a third kind of fan and their brood, the band-wagoners and their tag-alongs, the band-wagoner dependents who only go to games when the band-wagoner gets on board with their obsession that – they will “become a winner by their active support of the winners.” If and when the team starts losing again, these are the first fans to peel away.
A fourth group, which also may have some crossover similarities to any of the other groups, is the community-bond fan. These are the fans that basically go to any local game in any sport because the team represents Houston.
That’s how The Eagle sees it, anyway.
Houston is historically a baseball town, in spite of its obvious groundswell of support for pro football since the coming of the Houston Oilers in 1960. Anyone who doubts the fact of Houston’s baseball history will need to get their hands on the book that our local Society of American Baseball Research chapter has researched and written over the past three years. It’s called “Houston Baseball: The Early Years, 1861-1961”. This hardback copy work by our local Larry Dierker Chapter is due for release in April. Prue-publication orders for the 363 page beautifully written and documented and meticulously edited effort by Mike Vance into a work for the ages will both inform and entertain you. Orders are now being accepted at a special discount rate at our local website. Please click on this link below for additional ordering information:
Have a nice weekend, everybody!
Tags: different kinds fo fans
The Pecan Park Eagle 
March 8, 2014 at 10:57 pm |
The sad thing is too much of the media is not balanced. The vast majority writers/broadcasters now are football first (and in many cases football ONLY.) Football is a great sport, but hardly the ONLY sport. In the old days the vets wrote what was in season. Those days are gone.
March 8, 2014 at 11:18 pm |
Thanks, Greg. – Sadly, Jerome Solomon’s “worst time of the football year” words pretty much back up everything you are saying.