05 January 2016

A Fan's Identity Crisis

In 1993, following the death of Ewing Kaufman and eight years after the Kansas City Royals' only World Series championship (to that point), David Glass took the reins of the franchise. At that point, I had been a diehard Royals fan, despite growing up 1200 miles away, for 23 years. I attended the 1976 playoffs at Yankee Stadium and died a little inside when Chris Chambliss belted a ninth-inning, game-seven home run to foreclose the Royals' World Series aspiration.

Though I had never been to the state of Missouri, I followed my team and clung to my idolatry despite a string of losing seasons, because that's what a fan does.

Glass, former CEO and board chair at WalMart, was not so much a fan. Glass was a businessman who had made a career racing to the retail bottom. He deduced that a similar strategy would work in Major League Baseball, as long as he defined "worked" as "made a profit."

So Glass bled the franchise, secure in the knowledge that fans -- short for fanatics -- would continue to buy tickets and watch games on TV, not only because fanatics are fanatical but also because every game featured an opponent who might be worth watching. If the buying public wasn't interested in purchasing a ticket to see Mike Macfarlane and Hipolito Pichardo, a sufficient percentage of it would pay to see Mo Vaughn, Jim Thome, Roger Clemens and Cal Ripken.

Here's the Wikipedia entry extolling Glass' early "accomplishments" as owner:

Under Glass' leadership, the board cut the payroll budget from $41 million to $19 million. During the Major League Baseball strike of 1994-1995, Glass opposed any settlement with the players' union without a salary cap, and supported the use of strike breaking "replacement" players, despite a court ruling that the use of replacement players violated federal labor law

Lovely. So my favorite team was being guided by a Neandethal who cared not one whit about his team's place in the standings.

Letting Go of My Team
As you might imagine, my fanhood waned in the '90s, both because I grew other interests and because my team was literally a lost cause. By the early 2000s I had largely stopped following the Royals, who had not been competitive for 23 years and had no prospects of improving upon that record.

Indeed, despite the hiring of Dayton Moore as GM from the successful Atlanta franchise, KC had little to show for a string of high draft picks -- among Alex Gordon, Mike Moustakas, Eric Hosmer, Lorenzo Cain, Luke Hochevar and Billy Butler, only Gordon had performed as advertised. When they hired Ned Yost, a dinosaur manager who disdained new and improved baseball analytics, I scoffed. It occurred to me that not only was KC a pathetic shell of an organization, its mission was at odds with my fandom.

So in 2005, when the Montreal Expos moved to Washington, I seized upon the opportunity to attach myself to a new team. Living by then in Charleston SC, I was a lot closer to the District of Columbia than to Kansas City, and I could begin anew with a franchise whose long-term goal of a championship justified the lean times early on. And indeed, early investments paved the way for a pennant contender by 2012.

Falling Back In Love With My Ex
And then a funny thing happened in Kansas City. Moore's new strategy of signing glove-first, high-contact players for his spacious ballpark, combined with a pitching rotation built from back to front, began paying dividends. The Royals won 86-89-95 games the last three years, earning two playoff berths and winning a World Series title with thrilling never-say-die performances. The Little Engine That Could is eminently rootable.

Meanwhile, despite a pile of talent, the Nationals have stumbled the last few years, unable to win a single playoff series. Their stars can be cantankerous and their new ballpark is a junk pile. My head says I'm a fan but my heart is not with the program.

What's a boy to do?  I don't have a favorite football, basketball or hockey team. Being a Royals fan, and later a Nats fan, has been part of my identity, and now I seem to be suffering from a split personality. In a baseball sense, I'm bipolar. It seems clear to me that a fan divided against himself can't stand, but if I return to my childhood crush it would require divorcing my current partner, to whom I have promised fidelity, til death do we part.

I am vexed. I must choose by Opening Day. Stay tuned, or help.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Loyalty, my friend! Raising kids here in Oakland means I am happy when the A's win and I will root for them whenever it doesn't adversely affect my true love (which fortunately is not often). But I can't put on an A's hat - unless perhaps it was a Philadelphia A's hat. IMO you should embrace your first love (you never should have left just because they sucked - it's baseball, sooner or later everybody sucks). Enjoy when the Nats do win, but flush that Natitude down the drain and don Royal Blue! (Oh and GO PHILLIES 2018!)