Letters to the Editor
kevred
Published Letters: 92 Editor's Choice: 8
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Actually, the fans do share the blame.
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Tom 70 said, "All we're supposed to do is enjoy the game, and that's all we can do. We can't take responsibility for it."
I have to disagree with that. Fans are the ultimate source of revenue for the sport, and as such have a very real responsibility for it, albeit one that's detached from our intent, and thus frustrating.
I should distinguish between being a fan of baseball in the general sense, and being a paying fan of baseball. If you simply like baseball and watch it on broadcast TV or radio without buying any MLB merchandise or, for that matter, the products being advertised during the games (and you're not a Nilesen family), then you're not contributing to the problem in any direct way.
But as soon as you spend one dollar on baseball (or any other sport), by going to a game or buying that official MLB jersey or cap, or in any other way putting any money at all into the baseball machine, you're casting a vote for the status quo. Whether or not that's your intent, that's the result.
And I mean that in the literal sense. Tom also opines, "we have no way to act collectively rather than individually (which has no impact)." That's not really true either, because the sum total of individual actions is the collective action. It's just like casting a vote in an election. One vote may not seem to matter, but it's the sum total of all those individual votes that creates reality.
It's a common form of denial, especially in this country these days, for the individual to resist responsibility for the big picture. What difference does it make for me to litter, drive a gas-guzzling vehicle, buy water in plastic bottles? None at all, if you were the only person doing it. But when millions of people make the same choice, it has a huge impact, and the only way to have an impact on that is to change one's own behavior, and encourage others to do the same if you believe it's necessary.
This isn't to say that fans are the ultimate source of problems, which is perhaps the idea that offends Tom. None of us want our sports teams and favorite athletes to do bad things. Fans present the baseball machine with enormous sums of money, and the businessmen and athletes who are inclined to avarice make the choice to run wild with that, to do whatever it takes to generate and hoard as much money as they possibly can. Winning it all even comes second to generating revenue, and then the distortions of normalcy (decency?), like steroids and $250 million contracts, start appearing like grotesque mutations.
So we're not making the drugs, not selling the drugs, and not taking the drugs. But we're slipping our favorite addicts a little cash here and there, out of affection or support, and thus helping the cycle to continue.
I wish I knew what the best answer is. I'm not sure whether a boycott would help. More than anything else, this seems to be an inevitable revealing of human nature, and what can you do about that?
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@Tom 70, @Breadbaker
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Tom 70, thanks for your reply. It helps clarify the matter, because I agree with you that fans shouldn't be mentioned in the same breath as owners and players. Perhaps the best way to make my point would have been to distinguish between blame and responsibility. The vast majority of fans aren't really to blame, as they have little individual control. But all share responsibility, whether we like it or not, because we fund the thing.
You're right to mention all the things that the "status quo" means. That's the frustrating thing about the fans' responsibility--we're funding all of it, including the parts we don't like, and we don't really have much control except to decide whether to give any money, or no money.
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As for Breadbaker, you don't seem to have read my comment very carefully. I took pains to specify that if you watch games on TV and aren't a Nielsen family and don't buy the products of game advertisers, then you're not funding the problem. The point was to make a narrow case, and to illustrate degrees of responsibility, not to say that TV viewing has no effect.
Unless you believe that MLB and advertisers magically know what you're watching on TV if you're not reporting it to the ratings-measuring groups, your comment about my being disingenuous is completely off base. If you're going to use the tone you did, please read more carefully next time.
You're right that we're only sold one product with a sport, take it or leave it, all or nothing. To choose to buy it when there are aspects of it that are wrong or distasteful may be a small choice in the grand scheme of things, but it's still a choice.
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None of this is to make me sound like I'm above the issue. When I bought that Dallas Cowboys t-shirt a few months ago, I did it to acknowledge how much enjoyment they've given me over the years of me being a fan, which goes back to the 70s as a kid. But I know that in doing so, I'm actually funding the present-day NFL, which gives me less true satisfaction every year. It's a quandary for all of us.