Noam Scheiber notes some evidence that Mitt Romney's not a real Red Sox fan and asks "What is it with these presidential candidates and their baseball loyalties?" The thing of it is that it's hard out there for a politician. I remember when I was an intern in Chuck Schumer's office and for some reason the question arose of Schumer's favorite football team. The staff took the view that it would be impossible for him to ever express a view on the subject, because given that he'd spent his whole life living in the city he wouldn't be credible for him to be anything other than a Giants or Jets fan, but since the Bills play in New York State and the Giants and Jets don't, he couldn't very well root for anyone other than the Bills. Thus, he had no favorite football team.
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The Perils of Fandom
16 Oct 2007 03:21 pm
Comments (33)
Did you mean he couldn't root for anyone but the Bills?
I always think the safe answer is to root for the team you grew up liking. It demonstrates loyalty. Plus in most cases, it's what people usually do!
And there's nothing voters admire more in their elected officials than equivocation.
did he never consider the audacious and stylish move of, err, just saying what his favorite football team was?
Romney is no more a Red Sox fan than Abraham Lincoln was. Lincoln, as you would expect, was a Cubs fan. In fact he would still be alive today had he not gone to the Ford Theater the same night as John Wilkes Booth. He wanted to stay home and watched the Cubs on TV but his wife insisted that he go.
I grew up in Connecticut. Then I moved to California and worked in an office that had a lot of transplants from Boston. I grew up watching the Yankees on TV, so I liked them. I went to BU, which, like, encompasses Fenway park, so I followed the red sox. By the time I got out here, I liked both teams. People would here I was from Boston and they would want to talk about the sox and it would come out that I liked both teams and, even though these were totally good people, it really left them cold that I liked both teams. I would explain why and how and they would accept it, but the fan program was so ingrained that they couldn't quite internalize that it was not just okay but normal for me to like both teams. So I can see how even though the irrationality of the stance that politicians could be disliked because they don't like the same team as someone is so obvious it's just a sort of sticky cultural tendency.
Boy is Chuck Schumer's staff lame. I guess answering a basic question honestly and defending your answer with good faith was never a consideration. That's integrity!
Mr. Timbo, I'm sure you're a nice guy and all, but I doubt I could ever cast a vote for you. Sometimes there is no middle ground.
Bah. Everyone knows that the last REAL football fan in the White House was Richard M. f***ing Nixon anyway. If any of these malcontents had guts, they'd admit that they didn't actually like the sport in question. At least then we'd avoid "who among us doesn't like NASCAR" idiocies.
(and yes, I know he didn't actually say it. It still screams pandering, and real fans can spot a poseur coming from a mile away)
The correct answer to all professional sports fan questions is "Cleveland".
Sen. Schumer, you now owe me a brazilian dollars in consulting fees.
Well, lucky for me there is no controversy in my office. GO ROCKIES!!!!
Go Yankees!!
but since the Bills play in New York State and the Giants and Jets don't, he couldn't very well root for anyone other than the Bills
I don't get the dilemma. Were New York residents required to relinquish their fandom of the Jets and Giants merely because their owners decided to move to a stadium across the river?
Why didn't you guys just ask Joe & Eileen?
Noam Scheiber notes some evidence
It's going to take more than "he bought Yankees tickets when the Red Sox were in town" and "he has season tickets to Fenway but only went to one game during the height of campaign season" to hang M.C. Mitt.
That's patently rediculous, Llyonnoc. Everyone knows that back in those days the Cubs only played day baseball. Lincoln wanted to stay home because the White Sox were on.
... the Bills play in New York State and the Giants and Jets don't....
Pat Moynihan made a point of supporting the Bills when they met the Giants in the Super Bowl for that exact reason.
"I always think the safe answer is to root for the team you grew up liking. It demonstrates loyalty. Plus in most cases, it's what people usually do!"
Yeah, but what if you grew up as a nerdy Jew and never followed sports? Or, in Matt's case, you just followed basketball? Then which NFL team do you pretend to like to appeal to the beer can-crushing, sports-watching white proles?
Obama was (successfully) tip-toeing this minefield just yesterday
http://www.first-draft.com/2007/10/obama-the-unite.html
Wait, don't the Bills play in Canada?
Isn't a stadium for the Giants and Jets being constructed in New York City? I seem to recall reading about it somewhere.
"Isn't a stadium for the Giants and Jets being constructed in New York City?"
No; Bloomberg's idea for a Jets stadium in Manhattan was shot down. A replacement for Giants stadium is being built right next to the current one in East Rutherford, NJ.
You are not a fan if you root for both the Yankees and the Red Sox. You are a schmuck.
I have watched almost every Red Sox game for the last four years. Whenever Mitt Romney has been on hand, he's been seated in the section to the third base side of home plate, so that whenever the cameras are focused on a righty (from the first base camera well), you can see Mitt. Any other seat wouldn't be as good because he'd be too hard to see, or he'd be in the celebrity seats and therefore not "one of the people." And he always knows when the camera is on him, and he just sits there with a vague smile on his face, that helmet of hair perfectly still. The whole thing is a sham. The guy is a complete tool, and I really hope he's the GOP nominee so we can tear him apart for the better part of a year.
Oh mrTimbo, so lost, so clueless. But at least Yankee and Red Sox fans can unite just this once in agreeing with theCarpetmuncher - you really are a schmuck.
The Phil's are in the playoffs! Go Ph--!
Ah, forget it.
i think i read that chuck schumer story in Profiles in Courage 2.
ethel-to-tilly: nice call on the day games. the anti-lights lobby in wrigleyville was hella strong in the 1860s!
Lincoln wouldn't have been a White Sox fan. Other than transplants, the White Sox fan base is almost entirely concentrated in Chicago, the suburbs, and northwest Indiana. Downstate Illinois tends to be split between the Cubs and the Cardinals. Of course, Lincoln was born in Kentucky and spent his childhood in southern Indiana, so he may well have been a Cincinnati Reds fan.
It shows an unbelievable level of elitism and stupidity for anyone to think someone wouldn't vote for a politician because they rooted for a particular football team. It is a real problem, beyond this small example, that Congressional Democrats are constantly under the impression that the slightest little thing will make people vote against them.
Let's see, you are with me on the war, health care, civil liberties, etc. but you don't like the Giants? Ah, I think I will vote Republican. Assinine. The Demcrats biggest problem, pre- and post-9/11 is that they don't show any spine over anything.
"It's hard out here for a pimp..."
I really hope you were alluding to Hustle & Flow in lamenting Schumer's rock v. hard place.
Go Sox!!!
Anyone who follows the Boston blogs knows that Romney is a Nation TRAITOR because he has stock in YES, the Yankee network. We're so over him.
You are not a fan if you root for both the Yankees and the Red Sox. You are a schmuck.
Holy crap is THIS true! It's fine to like both the Yankees and the Red Sox, I guess, except that it's proof you don't actually like either team and neither like, nor really follow, baseball as a sport.
so he may well have been a Cincinnati Reds fan.
Heh, good one. At least they've won a world series in the last 20 years, which is more than can be said for the Cubs. Now, as far as that '90 Reds manager goes . . .
Comments closed October 30, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
"given that he'd spent his whole life living in the city he wouldn't be credible for him to be anything other than a Giants or Jets fan, but since the Bills play in New York State and the Giants and Jets don't, he couldn't very well root for anyone other than the Jets."
You mean "Bills", for that last "Jets".
Posted by Njorl | October 16, 2007 3:35 PM