Regional Discrepancies And Why I’m Rooting For the Phillies This Week

Sigh.

I don’t consider myself a Cardinals hater. As I’ve shared before, my roomate is an avid Cardinals fan. Some members of my family have graciously allowed me to live with them as I finish up my senior year of college and they are die-hard Cardinals fans as well. I don’t necessarily have anything against the Redbirds. I don’t cheer for them, but I don’t consistently talk about how much I hate them and don’t feel it necessary to highlight when they lose.

A few months ago I wrote a post about how I choose to look at the depth of fanhood rather than the team of an individual. I followed that post up with another one about how Royals fans need to be ready to accept bandwagon fans because the explosion of Royals bandwagon fans will indicate that the Royals have once again returned to dominance. Well, this week has been 7 days of consistent tongue-biting for one Ethan Evans.

Bolivar, Missouri lies 30 minutes north of Springfield, Missouri which happens to be the home of the Springfield Cardinals: AA affiliate of the St. Louis Cardinals. This means that Royals fans are few and far between on my college campus. I’m okay with this because in all honesty, Royals fans are few and far between anywhere.

What I hate hate hate are the ridiculous amounts of posers that all of a sudden appeared on the last night of the regular season as the Cardinals fought for a spot in the 2011 MLB playoffs. I happened to be on facebook as the Braves lost and was bombarded by statii of collegiate peers all in the vein of “Cardinals do it baby! I knew we could do it…World Series here we come!” People give me a hard time about not having a twitter account but I’m so glad I didn’t have one that night because I know it would have been ten times worse.

What makes me want to vomit is the fact that if you polled these  “fans” at the beginning of September, I think you would have found that most of them had packed it in, if they were even aware of the Cardinals’ chances in the first place. It’s my firm belief that 85% of the people who cheered so publicly that night couldn’t have named the Cardinals starting lineup without a Google search.

Again, I might not even have a problem with this if they just left it at that. But no…the condescension descends into my relationship with my own team. I can’t even sarcastically celebrate the Royals 4th place finish in the A.L. Central without being mocked by a bunch of Cardinals fans who didn’t even know (or care) how many games back of the Braves they were a month ago.

So here’s my analysis of the situation.

You fake Cardinals fans can shove it.

Yeah the Cards made the playoffs. Good for them. They certainly didn’t make it because you were there through thick and thin…fighting and grinding your way to the postseason. The real fans were there through it all. They kept watching them even when YOU had given up on them. So while you tell me about how poorly the Royals are run and how we need a manager like LaRussa and how we’ll never have the tradition of the Cardinals and blah blah blah…..I’m sick of it. You watch the first month of the season and the last month and you could care less what happens in between. Then you have the audacity to tell me why your team is the best and how my team will probably trade Hosmer and Moustakas away now that they’re showing positive signs of growth. Well, your opinion means squat, this isn’t 2003, and the Royals are committed to being a better team.

So again….while I don’t hate the Cardinals, I hope that the Phillies rock them, if only to shut the mouths of the idiots around me. If you’re a true Cardinals fan, I don’t have a problem with you. I know some of you and I know how closely you followed the race this month and I know how much getting to the playoffs meant to you. It just seems like Cardinals posers are the most irksome of any other type of “fan.”

Fine…that’s it. That’s everything I’ve been thinking about regarding the Redbirds this week. (I’m also losing in fantasy football this week so that might also have been a slight cause for my negative mood.) Call me a typical whining Royals fan and rub in the fact that the Cardinals are in the postseason once again while the Royals are not.

When the Royals get back to the big time I won’t be doing the same. I’ll just sit back and enjoy the moment.

And I’ll let my team do the talking.

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