TSJ breaks down the best and worst of the week’s sports into two camps: Who we love and who we hate. We call this column Man Crush VS. Douchebag.
Man Crush of the Week: Seattle Seahawks Fans
Seattle is a pretty great sports town. I mean, people go to soccer games there. They used to have awesome baseball and basketball teams too.
For whatever reason, the Seahawks have never been a sexy team. They’ve never had a Ken Griffey Jr. or a Shawn Kemp, let alone a Jay Buhner or Detlef Schrempf. And fans go crazy for them anyways.
Now that they have Russell Wilson, actually an exciting, likable franchise player, fans really, really like the Seahawks. And they can prove it too.
Against the 49ers they set the record for loudest crowd ever. And in the least surprising Seattle twist ever, it even came after a rain shower.
The 49ers are a great team, as evidenced by like the Super Bowl. And the Seahawks destroyed them.
And how did they do it? If you believe 49ers fans, it’s because the stadium was so loud.
In the most ridiculous/awesome letter to the editor of all time, this human being suggests the NFL tell the Seahawks fans to shush because it’s mean to the other team. It even goes so far to compare the loud stadium to the concussion and drugs problem in the league.
Seahawks fans, you guys are awesome. For all the reasons not to go to sporting events (money, time, TV, real life stuff) they go out and go crazy and really pride themselves on it. If you are a fan like I am, I’ll wear the same shirt if something starts going well, thinking it’s helping the team (I’m insane, also). But the cheers at the stadium are legitimately helping the team. And that’s why they’re my first Fan Crush of the Week.
Completely unrelated but I had to include this somehow, so just enjoy.
Douchebag of the Week: Boston Red Sox
I went to a Red Sox game last week and it was everything great about baseball. The park is incredible, they’ve renovated it to keep its charm while also having some of the best amenities in baseball, the seats are all great, it’s very fan friendly (other than the cost of the tickets, but whatever). They are generally a great organization, one of the good guys in sports.
But one of the best guys in sports in Mariano Rivera. And all year teams have been honoring Rivera for being one of the best guys in sports. When honoring someone as great on and off the field as Rivera is, it’s hard to really mess it up. Unless you make it about how he sucks.
Which is exactly what the Red Sox did.
They showed a video of Rivera blowing Game 4 of the ALCS, complete with player commentary about how Rivera was blowing the game. Everyone talks about how selfless and how Rivera never made himself bigger than the game. The presentation was just as much about the Red Sox winning the 2004 title as it was Rivera being Rivera.
They mentioned on Opening Day how the Red Sox cheered Rivera for blowing the save, which admittedly is kind of a hilarious thing. But it was made even better by Rivera laughing through the whole, which really does speak about Rivera’s character more than just about any other incident. They mentioned him laughing a lot. Like too much, as you can see in the conspicuously edited video from MLB.com leaving out the part about the 2004 game.
But the way the Red Sox framed it, it turned into another jab at Rivera blowing the save and setting up the Red Sox World Series win. I mean, they gave him a painting of him laughing, but it’s really just a reminder of why he was laughing it off in the first place.
Rivera said nothing about it, of course. That’s just who he is. He could have been a little upset but just laughed everything off again. And being Rivera, he even left one final classy mark on Fenway.
