Wasif's World

I found it ironic on Sunday that I, being a Boston fan, would have a funeral to attend just after the Red Sox lost to the Angels. The service was solely for a dear family friend, but my thoughts stole away from her for a moment to grieve briefly for Boston’s Olde Towne Teame (the extra “e” is for excitement).

It’s what we, as Red Sox fans, do. The team dictates our moods, our actions, our prayers. We are a passionate (READ: obsessed) fan base. And in one 24-hour span, the two fan bases generally regarded as the most knowledgeable saw their seasons come to an end at the hands of Southern California teams. St. Louis and its more belligerent, yet equally intelligent brethren, Boston, were forced to put their rally caps and replica jerseys in the closet for another year.

For they had ceded victory to a region that doesn’t get a lot of recognition as one that has great fans. But this is not to diminish their fanliness or bring into question their fanhood. On the contrary, they are their own kind of fans, dedicated in their own way, focused in a manner uniquely West Coastian.

Certainly to the rest of the population consisting of Tomahawk-chopping Braves fans, Homer Hankie-having Twinsies, not-showing-up Marlins fans, et al., the dance card is filled with teams that aren’t deserving. But fanatics of the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Near-But-Not-Actually-In-Los Angeles Angels contend that their reasoning is both near-sighted and myopic without being the least bit redundant.

But is it? I mean, if baseball games started in the third inning and ended in the seventh, they might have a case. Or if the term “true fan” meant someone who rooted for their teams only when they were doing well, they would certainly enter the discussion. But for now, that’s not the case. However, those sterotypes may be unfairly attributed to these fans as a consequence of many of them being Lakers fans.

With that said, let’s meet the fans that will be rooting on their teams in their respective league championship series this coming week:

Los Angeles Dodgers
In the National League, there are few teams that have as great a history as the former Robins of Brooklyn. Outside of the Giants and Cubbies, no team has won more games. And they’ve been to the postseason more than anyone except their former cross town rivals, Los Yanquis, having won the most pennants in the National League.

Fans of “Los Doyers” are the most true blue, literally. They “bleed Dodger blue” and not only because of a congenital condition that changes the color of their hemoglobin. The fact that they are routinely late to the games is simply due to traffic and the logistical nightmare they have trying to cram 50,000 fans all driving alone to the ballpark up one road alongside a mountain.

Of course, one of the most famous shots in the history of baseball came in the 1988 World Series by their hero Kirk Gibson. Arguably, the most memorable visual of that moment came of the cars in the parking lot trying to beat the traffic home screeching on their brakes when they heard the radio broadcast announce that Gibson won the game on a home run.

Some might say this enhanced their reputation as bad fans, but could you really blame them? The game was out of reach going into the bottom of the ninth as the A’s held a seemingly insurmountable one-run lead.

Philadelphia Phillies
These guys are hardened. They were the first fans to endure their team losing 10,000 games. And they got blown out in 9,500 of them. Each one of those has stayed with them and added to the resentment of all those other teams that won. Until last year, they were the most futile city with a team in all four major professional sports, having gone without any championship for a quarter century since Dr. J cured those loser blues.

It’s taken its toll, however. These fans from the “City of Brotherly Love” will throw rocks at Santa Claus; they’ll cheer when opposing players get injured; they’ll even punch a nun in the face if she’s going for the same foul ball as they are.

A trivial side note is that one of the cities delicacies is called “scrapple.” This is the stuff that isn’t deemed worthy enough for hot dogs. And they eat that. A lot of that. (I’d repeat that for you, but I’m too busy inducing vomiting.)

So keep that in mind and treat them with kid gloves. After all, with all the scrapple and cheesesteaks they eat, they don’t have long to live. It’s science.

Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
The team that switches its locator name every several years, the Angels, is the youngest team at this party. They’ve only been playing for 49 years. And their fans have only been watching them play for seven.

It was in mid-2002 that this breed of fan was discovered. Before then, if you went to a game at the “Big A,” their fans were the needle to the visiting teams’ fans’ haystack. Even Hall of Famer Rod Carew played some games for them wearing his Twins cap.

But then Mike Scoscia’s boys got hot and people started showing up. Still, they weren’t sure of fan etiquette. Fairly new to this sport of baseball, the Orange County residents looked for guidance on when and how hard to cheer. That guidance came in the form of a monkey. Not just any monkey, mind you, a rally monkey. And not just any rally monkey, but a celebrity rally monkey. They hired Katie the



Monkey, (who is on the Internet Movie Database. Look it up.) with a resume that included a role on “Friends” as Ross’ simian friend Marcel, and, most famously, as the ebola monkey from “Outbreak.”

So they’re taken cheering advice from her because they don’t want to get sick. Incidentally, unlike Dodgers fans, Angels fans are late to the games because they still aren’t sure when the games start.

New York Yankees
What can be said about these fans that hasn’t been graphitized on their stadium’s walls? Strangely enough, they’ve had the opposite history of the Phillies yet end up in the same place; they’ve won so much that they are also angry. They are also an entitled bunch.

Anything short of a championship is a complete and abject failure, which they’re getting used to. They continue to make the most of it, however, by opening their purse strings and snatching up whichever free agent has the best stats the previous season. And yet with a half billion dollars on their payroll for the next few years, they’ll continue to defend any accusations of “buying championships.”

As Anaheim wavers about their name, Yankees fans, too, are confused. Is it because they haven’t succeeded in winning any championships lately? They’re having a crisis of confidence and need you to lend them a sympathetic ear. I’m not talking about letting them suckle from your teat, but let them gloat. It’s what they do best, when they’re not bashing on A-Rod. And they have gone so long without something about which to gloat.

(If you’re hoping to attend a game at Yankee Stadium, by the way, you should know that great seats are still available and probably will be available through Games One and Two of the ALCS. They’re directly behind home plate and evidently, from the looks of things during the recently transpired ALDS, are being kept empty just in the event you decide you want to take in a playoff game there.)

So strap yourself in for a fantastic fortnight of baseball as we narrow down the contestants, and subsequently the fans, to one from the American League and one from the National League. It will be a Freeway Series, I say, thus marking the first time in history that the World Series games will start in the third inning.