Re: Our fans are "dog-fakers"
Dude, there is a 25 year waiting list for season tickets for this team according to wiki.
Sure is, which is why you have to get the tickets from a broker. That's life given the 50,000+ season ticket waiting list. And surprisingly, not all go as a family. Some are couples. Some are individuals who go with friends. And did anyone claim the frequency of your trips to the game means squat? I didn't, so feel free not to rant over comments you add to my posts. If you want to lodge an appeal for the poor and downtrodden, feel free not to do it in the context of an activity categorized as entertainment. You're the one spewing this self-righteous diatribe right now on what you perceive to be the fans at the game when you admittedly don't go.
The fact is some people couldn't afford the experience if they save up a whole year, which is why I couched my statement in terms of "if you could save up and afford it" put up or shut up. The tickets are not free and likely never will be, so there is an economic reality to going to games. At the same time, if you could never afford to go to a game in January, you likely would have no context for the experience of sitting on your keister in 11 degree weather watching your team get beaten down and likely would not take such a vocal opposition to what they do at a game. Some people who attend the games afford themselves the luxury of tickets and forgo other luxury items and are not otherwise wealthy.
I don't like the booing and would never boo but I am not going to say I cannot understand why fans would feel inclined to boo. I went to the Jax game, the first game since I attended the Seattle game in 2003 or 2004. The fans were loud and it was a great experience even before the team blew Jax out.
It is no small deal to get to the game itself, the team actually asked the fans to arrive early for the playoff game despite the cold, and then the team imploded from the gun, followed by the same pain to fans to exit the Razor after the game in walking to cars and getting off RT 1. Do I begrudge them leaving early to avoid that when the game is out of hand? Not at all.
I love the Pats and follow pretty much everything they do but if you aren't there for that likely 7 to 9 hour experience, and the financial cost that accompanies the experience, then you aren't really in a position as the hypothetical stadium spectator to call others out on what they should or shouldn't do at a game. If you cannot afford the experience at all, it's like looking at a mansion and saying "if that mansion were mine, I would stare lovingly at the walls for hours a day and curse you mansion owner for not doing the same." There is a saying that goes "never criticize a man until you've walked a mile in his moccasins." If you haven't been there, you may want to reign in the vocal criticism a bit.
The best the Pats would have got out of me in this game was silence and cheers for Faulk and Julian, and I try to cheer whenever possible without sounding like the village idiot watching a different game than the one in front of me. Are all fans great? No. I am sure there are clingers who want to hang on to the championship team and dislike the absence of championships and will soon disappear. Is it right to generalize that the whole fan base sucks? Not at all. There are fans in that group dating back to the origins of the team, and frankly anybody who stuck with the team through the bad years is a fan, regardless of what they do at a game.
