Pink Hats and Bandwagons

Well, the pink hat conversation has finally been picked up by the Globe: http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/fashion/articles/2008/06/26/why_is_this_pink_hat_so_hated/  So I would like to take this occasion to defend the pink hat and the bandwagon fan.  As a life long sox fan, Massachusetts resident and season ticket holder for the last decade I would like to formally say that I love bandwagon fans.  I’ve seen the park 1/2 empty and I hated it.  I’ve seen the Sox not have limitless spending resources and I hated it.  I’ve been to games where it was all ugly fat disgruntled guys who were locked into the bleachers by a cage and I hated it.  Now everything is nice and beautiful in Fenway, the crowds are full and contain attractive women and people on dates and we win all the time and being at the park is a big festive, happy event.  But life long Sox fans want to find something to bitch about to make themselves feel superior, so they turn to how they are better fans than some of these new people, and point to what they wear.  Let it go and grow up.  There is always room on the bandwagon, and if having clothing accessories helps make people like the Sox let’s make more of them, not complain.  How is this more shallow than how many of the rest of us got here: suckered into being a baseball fan by the look and feel of walking into the ballpark and seeing all that green open space perfectly manicured and lines with freshly raked dirt, or by the smell of the grass, peanuts, hot dogs and spilled beer, or falling in love with the sound of the crack of the bat or the feel of an electric crowd on one of “those nights.”  Or statistics.  How are these things more legitimate reasons to get into a game, or more legitimate expressions of your enjoyment of that game, than clothing?  The argument that a particular kind of clothing that isn’t “true fan” clothing is absurd.  Are we supposed to only wear actual uniforms?  Or are t-shirts ok?  Most of the people complaining wear the hats without lining that conform to your head (unlike actual sox uniform hats), and which are a color of blue that the Sox do not and have never worn in their uniforms.  So why is this stylistic adjustment ok, but not pink?  People in pink hats cheer just like everyone else, and since they and the rest of the latecomers started showing up, Fenway has become a MUCH better place to watch a game.  Did people jump on because the Sox were winning?  Absolutely, but most of the new Sox fans I know fell in love with the Sox in 2003, the year of greatest heartache since 1986, not because of the 2004 win.  Do the new fans all know everything you are supposed to know about the Sox?  No, but neither do you, and most of the new fans I meet are learning and trying to learn.  Are some of them more likely to drop off if the Sox start losing?  Maybe.   But some of them will form a love that endures hard times and they will stay.  And if we can use the bandwagon to convert just a few people to love the Sox for life, then it is absolutely worth suffering some people who are just there because of the trend. 

Top 5 Celebrity Couples I’d Like to Host for a Weekend

1.  Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner

2.  Will Arnett and Amy Poehler

3.  Tom Brady and Giselle Bunchden

4.  Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore (and Bruce Willis)

5.  Tony Romo and Jessica Simpson

Politics anyone?

I apologize for the unoriginal thought, but I think this link is worth a read:  http://www.tnr.com/story.html?id=f5a811b8-a7e3-4615-8677-7f349950a9c7

I’d love more money in my pocket and efficiency in government as much as the next guy.  But I’d also like paved roads, some federally funded research on cancer, stem cells, and global warming, and an honest politician at the healm.  At least Obama’s general policy positions are credible, even if they’re not as specific as some would like.  Other than his proposed energy policy, I can’t think of one substantive policy distinction between Bush and McCain.  My conservative friends get annoyed at the 95% Bush-McCain voting alignment comments coming from the Dems, calling it unfair and disingenuous, but I’ve yet to hear one person explain how a McCain candidacy presents even a modest shift from current policies.  It’s always the same bullshit:  “but he’s not a big spender like Bush” or “he’s a true fiscal conservative.”  Well, I think the above article successfully refutes these popular arguments. 

McCain won’t even commit to one discretionary spending program that he would cut (including his favorite “silly bear study”); every Republican candidate (including Bush when he campaigned, and his dad for that matter) says they’ll cut discretionary spending to pay for tax cuts but few (if any) are able to do so, thus enlarging the national deficit; McCain’s military budget is sure to soar even higher, which may be defensible position but he has to own up to funding it.

McCain’s economic policy is just “silly season” in Washington again.  He’s either too shitty at math to be a viable Presidential candidate, just another politician pandering to his base, or he hates Israel.  Either way, in his own creepy-old-man-that-puts-you-to-sleep-before-class-starts voice and using his own spiteful words, “my friends … that doesn’t sound like the change we need in Washington.”  What a silly ass.

Gomes is punk

“I want to be very clear: I defend everything our guys did.  I feel actually proud of the way we handled the situation that was presented.”  ~ Rays Manager Joe Maddon

Apparently, jumping on top of a scrum and wildly throwing sissy punches at someone’s back when two other guys are already on him is behavior to be proud of.  I must have missed the memo on that one.  I think Shields plunking Coco and then fighting is fine, but Gomes sucks and is a punk to boot. I eagerly await their collapse.     

Mike Honcho

Politics anyone?

I must say a few words about Hillary.  This just in, she is now trying to change the superdelegates who have pledged themselves to Obama.  While I call shenanigans on the whole concept of a superdelegate, this move seems a little desperate and sinister, given that having the Clintons lean on you for a vote could be a little scary, given that he’s the former Presidents, and given the number of friends they have who turn up dead.   Add this to the fact that she wants to get all the delegates in Michigan even though she was the only viable candidate on the ballot (all the others withdrew in accordance with the request of the Democratic Party), and she seems to believe that rules and process are mere minor inconveniences standing in the way of the all important goal of winning power.  Since this is the opposite spirit emanated by the US Constitution, this should make everyone a little nervous.  Many Democrats were very upset with the way Bush achieved the White House (both times) because they felt like voting processes weren’t fair or hadn’t been complied with.  Hillary supports seem to have lack this aversion for bending process.

I do feel badly for her because she is such a strong candidate and it’s got to be frustrating to lose a nomination that was kind of hers to lose when this all started.  But I think she made an enormous mistake here by fighting to the death rather than bowing out gracefully earlier.  She is going to both lose this race and isolate herself from the party, and has further exposed her divisiveness and ‘ends justify the means’ view of politics to the right (which already didn’t like her). 

Besides, I never thought she had a chance against McCain, since the Evangelical and conservative republican crowd was going to stay home or vote for him, and democrats don’t mind him.  Add in the closet chauvinists, and now take away the black vote and she doesn’t have a prayer.  I recognize that most people assume that Hillary would beat McCain, but I’m not sure anyone is thinking it through.   The country may want change, but the math isn’t there for her.

Besides, this probably was/is Obama’s one shot (you get to do the hope/change thing only once.  He would have to reinvent himself to run again).  But Hilary, had she not fractured the party, could run whenever (she is running on a platform of experience).  So in my mind, she seriously damaged her long term viability as a democratic presidential nominee, in an effort to win a nomination that probably wouldn’t earn her the presidency anyway.

Beat L.A.