Fandom, Generalizations, and "The Best Fans In Baseball"

Photo from @BestFansStLouis

Friday was a great day for me as a Cubs fan. The much discussed topic of the past week was the landing spot for outfielder Jason Heyward, who just finished his first season with the St. Louis Cardinals. Needless to say, Cardinals fans wanted him back. The announcement broke early Friday afternoon that Heyward was leaving the Gateway to the West behind and coming to the North Side. This set off a firestorm.

I've referred to the "Best Fans St. Louis" Twitter account a couple of times before. It's one of my favorite follows on social media just because of the collection of sheer idiocy on display. Also, schadenfreude is fun. It's especially fun when the fanbase of the team you hate is exploding with rage at the loss of their premier free agent to their biggest rival. It's also kind of fun to rile them up a little bit. I've traded jabs with a few, attempting to be respectful (most of the time), only to be called a "faggot", "self-righteous" for calling out one fan's self-righteous elitism, and been blocked by a "juggalo" who stupidly suggested that Yadier Molina is a better catcher than Yogi Berra was, though that may have just been a successful attempt at trolling. I don't know.

And that gets to the crux of the argument that I wanted to make today. The so-called "Best Fans in Baseball" are anything but. There is a very vocal portion of the fanbase of the St. Louis Cardinals that are racist, homophobic, elitist, outright dumb, or a combination of the four. The purpose of @BestFansStLouis is to expose these people to the criticism that they deserve. When you tell me that Matt Carpenter deserved to make the All Star Game over Kris Bryant, claim that "All Stars aren't based on stats", then use stats to justify your argument, you deserve to be raked through the coals. When you glorify a drunk driving murderer who just so happened to play baseball for your favorite team, you deserve to be raked through the coals even more so.

All of that said... this should not represent the entirety of the St. Louis Cardinals fan base. Yes, the people retweeted on @BestFansStLouis are scum and deserve to be called out for their idiocy/hate/whatever, but we need to not judge the entire area or fan base based solely on this sample. I know multiple Cardinal fans who absolutely disagree with the notions this vocal minority express and are in fact the classy people that the so-called "Best Fans in Baseball" claim to be.

Jay Rush, a WONC alum who just barely overlapped my time there and Quad Cities radio personality, is a die hard Cardinals fan, but he expressed respect when Heyward signed with the Cubs, was respectful when the Cubs knocked the Cardinals out of the playoffs, and I've never noticed the self-righteousness about the franchise that other Cardinals fans express. He epitomizes what the fan standard of conduct should be.

I went to St. Louis in 2009 with my dad for a couple games at Busch Stadium when the Twins were in town. I wore Cubs gear because I was a 19 year old idiot (though let's be honest, I'd do it again), and I only got two comments about it: a pastor who joked about how my dad and I "need to be saved" (and while some people might take offense at being told that, it's clear he was joking and we'd had a respectful conversation up to that point), and a concession worker said that I was "a brave soul" for wearing Cubs gear to Busch Stadium. That was it. I also saw the fans in attendance that second day give Mark DeRosa, who had just been traded to St. Louis, a standing ovation for his first at bat. It was painful to see after seeing DeRosa in Cubbie blue the two years prior, but I appreciated the respect he got. I'm sure a large chunk of those people wouldn't agree with the hate speech expressed online.

Long story short, there are plenty of classy Cardinals fans. What @BestFansStLouis wouldn't have showed were the Cardinals fans that expressed disappointment that Heyward was leaving, but thanked him for his time in St. Louis and wished him well. It doesn't fit the agenda of the account, and that's fine. What it does is shows that the St. Louis Cardinal fan base, as a whole, is no better and no worse than any other fan base. I'm a Cub fan, and I know there are a ton of drunk idiots that are Cubs fans, and former Cubs have claimed that they heard fans say racist things at Wrigley while they were wearing Cubbie blue. I hate that that happened, and those actions deserve to be condemned, but they don't represent the entirety of the fan base. Likewise, not all Cardinal fans are elitist, racist homophobes who deify an aging catcher who spits on umpires.

I guess the tricky part for me is that no other fan base has the audacity to call itself the "best fans in [insert sport]". Organizations will claim such on behalf of its fans, but the self-declarations as far as I'm aware exist only with the St. Louis Cardinals' fans. It can be tricky to find that balance, but it needs to be done. Of course, personal vendettas that I may or may not have don't help the matter either. Whatever the case, it's important not to judge the entirety of the fan base to be these horrible people... but when the horrible people surface, call them out on it.