Portrait of a Fan (As A Young Woman) Pt. 2

What is cheating? In the context of baseball and performance enhancing drugs (PEDs), where is the line drawn? Before, during or after the League banned PEDs?

Technically (and logically speaking), if a substance wasn't banned, then a baseball player wasn't cheating if he chose to use it. The Major League rules didn't say anything about steroids or other PEDs yet, so according to the rules players could juice up all they wanted. It's not a far stretch to say the MLB turned a blind eye to it all while watching on-field offense grow, and with it the popularity of professional baseball across North America. We'll talk a little more about the times and what it's possibly led to, after we've established some perspective on cheating.

As we looked at the different types of fan (gamer, teamer, leaguer) in the first part of this series, the teamer and leaguer in me completely agrees with the assessment of banned substances and cheating above. As members of the Major Leagues and following their rules, players who bulked up with a little help didn't do anything wrong. (I will qualify that by saying they probably did some damage to their personal health, but we're talking about them in the context as baseball players in the MLB for the moment.) Okay, that's cut and dry. Not surprisingly, I've written about some of this before, particularly when Barry Bonds was getting close to breaking the homerun record. Coming from the perspective of a leaguer, who wouldn't want to watch in awe and celebrate when an incredible feat like that happens? True, I'm glad the steroid stuff was out in the open before, but as long as it came out sometime. Looking back at some of the great stories and feats in baseball history, we really have no way of knowing what those guys might have been using to get ahead.

Let's break it down a little. There are at any given time 750 men playing at the major league level. That number can go as high as 1200 when September 1^st rolls around and rosters expand. It's not hard to understand the competition inherent in trying to crack one of the 30 major league rosters (and staying there.) (Read The Bullpen Gospels if you want some more understanding.) It's also not hard to understand the determination of some players to get every single opportunity to succeed, even if it's not the wisest choice. Hindsight's 20/20, and there will always be people who try to skirt the rules (and not just in baseball).

The truth is taking any kind of PED can't make you a baseball player. They're performance enhancing by nature, not performance creating. They can't make you have consistent mechanics, a good batter's eye or proper fielding basics. What they can do, from my understanding, is produce more strength and help lessen time spent recovering from injury (among some other not so nice side-effects [i.e.: backnee and temper flares, etc.]). With more and more pressure put on players to produce big numbers in the last 20 years-ish and those numbers being rewarded with huge-sometimes-bordering-on-ridiculous-no-salary-cap contracts, why wouldn't a guy try to improve his numbers by juicing up? Or, why wouldn't he try to lessen the time it takes him to come back from injury, so some other player doesn't get a shot to take his place on the roster?

All in all, the connection between competition to crack into/succeed in the majors, pressure to produce great numbers, growing popularity, MLB's (ignorant or ignored) blind-spot of PEDs and the financial boom in baseball in the late '90s can be logically tracked.

But here's where it gets dicey. Baseball isn't just logic or reason. It's guts and emotion, too. More often than not, a fan's devotion to their team or given sport is quite illogical. And the gamer in me, well, she can't help but feel a little hurt and betrayed by PEDs in pro baseball and everything that has ensued because of them.

I'll be the first to admit that the gamer in me is a little…naïve, and idealistic. Truth be told, that part of me feels like a little girl balancing on her toes, raring to get to the baseball diamond (be it real, on TV or imaginary). This baseball-loving little girl me can never really understand how anyone who plays any kind of baseball could ever want to sully the game of baseball by using steroids or anything else. She's constantly in awe of having baseball in her life; being able to watch it, play it, learn about it; love it. It's hard to understand that anyone else could feel differently about it, especially if it's what they did for a living. Because in her mind (and mine), more than anything it matters that the game was played to the best of everyone's natural abilities. In the end, baseball doesn't care if you have the most homeruns or the fastest fastball. All that matters is that you picked up the ball and gave it your all. (Apologies for the rhyme.) You can say or think what you will about the gamer in me, but I think she can be given the benefit of the doubt when it comes to her outlook on baseball.

The adult in me understands that playing professional baseball is at its core a job, while still acknowledging that it's a lot more than that, too, to those whose profession it is. Not everyone who plays pro ball looks at it wide-eyed and bushy tailed. Not all players count their lucky stars because they get to play baseball for a living, with total disregard to the other benefits of the gig. Some players star count because of the by-products playing pro ball has brought them (i.e. ensured financial safety and stability for them and their families, etc.) Some wanted to be famous, others might've just gotten lucky. The point is, adult me accepts that not necessarily every pro baseball player (or baseball fan) feels the same way I do about baseball. Little girl me, a.k.a. gamer me, still hasn't quite grasped all that yet.

There's something else in all this that worries all three types of fan in me. It has more to do with the effect of the offensive boom and how it's affected the appreciation and expectation of other fans of my generation. I won't get into this too far, but I'm sometimes a little scared that fans over the last 20 years have been bred to expect high scoring routings and tickertape length homeruns all the time. This past season was amazing for pitcher accomplishments, but I worry that appreciation for small ball, pitcher duels and 1-nothing games is only currently a very small part of baseball appreciation as a whole. Who knows…maybe the time of the pitcher is coming once more and fans will be bred to appreciate that part of the game again, along with their offensive output love. I guess only time will tell.

JaysGirl5

Portrait of a Baseball Fan (As A Young Woman)

First and foremost, I am a fan of the game of baseball. I love it more than anything. Secondly, I'm a Blue Jays fan; I'm a die-hard. Thirdly, I'm a Major League Baseball fan. I enjoy following the highest level of play of my favourite game. At times first and second are very closely intertwined, as the Jays are my main source of watching baseball being played, but there always remains a line between the three.

Now some may say that a baseball fan is a baseball fan is a baseball fan. Okay, that's fair. But the term "baseball fan" doesn't begin to cover the differences in the population that makes up that group. So sorry to burst any bubbles, but a baseball fan is not a baseball fan, etc., etc. There's gamers, teamers and leaguers and sometimes the types overlap, work together or go head-to-head, but they're still there. They do exist even if the dividing lines between them are hard to see or comprehend. For better or worse, or complete neutrality, all us "baseball fans" were not created equal.

Before believing that I've gone off the deep end, stop and think about what I'm about to explain. Really think about it. I guarantee you won't think I'm so wrong by the end.

At this point you're probably starting to ponder exactly what the differences are between the three types of fan I named above. (Which is should state may not be the only three, but I believe they are the basis for any fan you could find.) Maybe you've guessed by now or maybe they were obvious to you before I even wrote about them.

But, to make sure we're all on the same page going forward, here are the types of fan as I see them:

Gamer: A lover of the game of baseball, no matter its form. Be it hardball, softball, slow-pitch, lob ball, three pitch, professional, pick-up, little league; it doesn't matter to a gamer. They love the actual game of baseball, whether it's playing or watching it. As long as there's a bat, ball, batter, and pitcher, they're in. The outcome doesn't matter, only that the game existed. They truly love and understand the game.

Teamer: Loves and follows a particular professional team. Falls somewhere on the level of fan spectrum from casual to die-hard. Isn't automatically a gamer or a leaguer. Is mainly concerned with the wins and losses of their particular team, and any post-season success. Ex. John Smith is a huge Dodgers fan and only really cares if they win and make the playoffs. He doesn't really care what else happens around the Majors.

Leaguer: Loves and follows the Majors Leagues, both American and National. Can have a preference between the Leagues, but at least slightly follows both. A leaguer can just root for the Major Leagues in general, but most will have begun as a Teamer and their support/interest has grown and led them to be a Leaguer.

Just to clarify a little more before we go any further. You don't have to be one of the above things to be another. You can be just a gamer, teamer, or leaguer or any mix of the three. Just because you're one doesn't mean you're the other two. These definitions (teamer, leager) can be applied to those who don't follow a Major League team or MLB, but do follow another team and/or the league they play in.

From my experience, the most common mixes are gamer-teamers and teamer-leaguers. But, and this is an important disclaimer, that doesn't mean there aren't a whole bunch of other mixes of fan out there; varying degrees in each type, varying degrees of seperation between types, varying orders of importance of types or that there aren't other master or sub-types that I haven't encountered yet. Even though I'm trying to make sense of "baseball fan", I recognize and respect that we all come in different levels and kinds of love and appreciation.

So, where do we go from here? Well, even without my declaration above, I'm sure it's no great suprise that I'm all three types and which order they fall in. Some of my previous entries make it pretty obvious where my heart truly lies in baseball, when you take into account the definitions above. But I felt it was important to explain all this, to put it out there to be thought about, discussed, dissected. I think this is an interesting/important point to look at in general, without taking into consideration the effects (if any) all this might have on the way fans look at baseball or the future of baseball itself. I also think clarifying how I see "baseball fans" will serve as a buoy when jumping in to the PEDs/cheating discussion. Not only will the definitions above serve as a starting point, but they'll also be a lifeline to avoid getting too lost or far from home when navigating the messy waters of the steroid era and post-steroid era.

They say you should wait an hour after eating before swimming. Well, I think the same thing about thought and discussion. Take some time to digest what I've written, think about it, then get ready to dive on in to steroids and cheating.

Your faithful gamer, teamer, leaguer and blogger,
JaysGirl5

The True Meaning

A part of this post was originally part of my last post, but I decided to make it a stand-alone.

Disclaimer: I may get a little ranty again. I can't promise anything. I've always thought about this, and I kinda feel like sharing. Also, I realise this might now just apply to Toronto, but it's the only city/area I can talk about.

Maybe sports fans in Toronto have become so conditioned to losing thanks to the Leafs, that they're too sceptical to support anything that might be better than mediocre. Maybe they've become so cynical to winning that they can't innocently support it. That now instead of being supportive, they sit back and wait. They hold out their support to see how the team will actually do. When they win, they're all over it. They walk the walk and talk the talk of someone who's been a fan from the start. But as soon as the team falters a little or stops winning/being impressive, they're gone. Their support completely forgotten, and in most cases they'll start talking about how all along they alone knew that the team wasn't going to do any good.

I realise I just described bandwaggoners. I don't consider them fans, but sadly without them...fan bases in Toronto might realistically be ever so tiny.

It's possible things weren't like this 40 years ago when the Leafs weren't so far removed from a Stanley Cup win. I don't know. I've only ever lived in a Toronto sports world where the Leafs dissapoint every year, and that gloom seems to become a cloud over any other sports success no matter how good. In this instance, and only in this one instance, I absolutely loathe that Canada is hockey country, and that my favourite team and I live in Leaf country.

This is not to say that I don't cheer for other Toronto teams to win. I think it sucks when they lose, and rocks when they win. But I do my best not to bandwaggon. I pay attention to sports, I love them, but everyone knows plain and clear the Jays are my passion, followed by sports in general. I don't really like hockey, but have enough Canadian pride that I want a Canadian team to win. I have enough Torontonian sports pride to want a Toronto team to win when there isn't another Canadian team. I don't think that's bandwaggonning, just being a hometown/country sports fan.

It's great to win, but in the end if you love a sport and/or a team, shouldn't you just love to watch them...no matter how painless or painful? Maybe I'm a naive sports fan. Maybe having become a Jays die-hard during their *ahem* not so good seasons after the World Series has conditioned me to love my team no matter what. I realise being a die-hard Jays fan and baseball fan in general first and foremost makes me a minority in Canada. I'm okay with that. I came to terms with that a long time ago. Personally I think I'm incredibly spoiled to love a team that won the championship twice early in both of our lives, and I that I fell in love with them not because they won, but indifferent to it*.

I just think...if you're a fan, you're a fan. Bandwaggoning, no. Questioning and being critical of your team, yes. Saying you're a fan, but never enjoying, embracing or celebrating your team even in the bad times, no.

At the end of the game, day, and season...having a smile on your face and in your heart because you just got to watch your favourite sport/team play win or lose, championship or not, yes.

That is the true meaning of being a fan.

JaysGirl5


*Note: To clear up, I am the biggest sports fan in my family and didn't really start enjoying following major league sports until my teens, after my Jays die-hardedness had started. So that really meant that being under 10 when the Jays won the World Series and no one else in my family following sports, I wasn't really aware. Frankly, I fell in love with being in Rogers Centre (SkyDome) in '93 and watching Joe Carter, Carlos Delgado and Shawn Green play in the mid-'90s. Yes, I'm defending being a Jays die-hard. I really didn't become one because of the World Series. At the time, I didn't really know it was going on. I just really loved watching them play, win or lose.