The San Francisco Giants won the World Series and all is well in the Bay Area. Eerily well, as if something isn’t right. Let me ask you a question.
Do you know who Daniel Ortmeier is?
If you don’t, then you didn’t deserve to buy postseason tickets. You are a so-called “bandwagon” fan – your allegiance switches to whichever team happens to be successful at the time.
You didn’t go through the struggle that real Giants’ fans went through. I’ve met fans at games that listened to the 1962 World Series on the radio and wept as Willie McCovey’s line drive was snagged by Bobby Richardson with two men on base in the ninth in Game 7.
For example, look at the New York Yankees’ fan base. There are many fiercely loyal fans that patrol The House That Jeter Built, but what logic can explain the New York Yankees’ fans in California? It seems like the collection of 27 Championships is a great selling point for a fan base.
Bandwagon jumpers might be terrible, but even worse are fair-weather fans.
Nothing gets my facial tic started like fans that support a team all season, buy their merchandise, root for them all year, and then, come playoff time, while their team is sitting on the couch or golfing, the fan suddenly plunks down $75 for a jersey of a team in the playoffs.
And they do this just so that they can say they believed in the team the entire time. You don’t get the real emotion or the satisfaction of a championship that way. A real fan understands and reveres the history of a team.
True fans remember the first time they see a performance that will be engraved in their mind from childhood to senility – perhaps their first game, or their first win. As a true fan, you remember the person who told you the story, the insane devotion to something larger than any one person. You will always remember the pain and the happiness.
And when Brian Wilson threw that final cutter of the season, he turned around making sure to salute his father and God. And I turned and hugged the man who told me the story, my own personal salute to my father. Both of us had tears in our eyes. We knew that we could die happy because all our years of dedication to our team paid off.
Contact Gerardo Recinos at [email protected]