Let me apologize in advance for the utterly non-political and non-substantive content of this diary. I figure that, if ever there were a time to drop something like this on the recent diary list without endangering the prominence of someone's intricate, thought-provoking, labored-over piece, it would be the Friday night before Christmas.
(More over the flip)
These preliminaries out of the way, I'm interesting in knowing what kind of sports fans and non-sports fans hang out on DKos, as well as their take on the origins of their attitude toward sports. To help out, I'll providie some descriptions that, in my reductionist view, allow for the categorization of mankind vis-a-vis its orientation toward the athletic endeavor:
- The Indifferent - The indifferent is the only truly value-neutral group in my system of categorization. Treating sports in much the same way I treat Latvian philately, they neither like nor dislike it, and rarely think about it at all. If they flip through the channels on a Sunday afternoon, the fleeting image of plastic-armored men engaged in fierce battle is likely to provoke no more subliminal reaction than #16 in the Judith Light series of Lifetime made-for-TV movies.
- The Chomskyites - It is a bit unfair to label all of these individuals "Chomskyites", since appreciation of the man in no way ensures a dislike of sports or vice versa. Yet I use the phrase to refer to anyone who believes that sports amount to little more than a modern "opiate of the masses". A way to keep the people distracted, long after the clerics' product had been diluted to over-the-counter strength via scientific skepticism. No amount of psuedo-intellectual manifestos on the philosophy of sport can pry the Chomskyites from an opinion forged from years of '80's-era bikini-"babe" Coors lights ads and thinly veiled misogyinistic pitches featured at halftime. Our country faces a crisis, and flabby face-painted men spend their time heaving intoxicated high-fives at each other from the nosebleed section.
- The Casual Fan - The casual fan loves his sports the way I love my still-unfinished copy of Ulysses - long droughts of inattention punctuated by bouts of enthusiasm. Casual fan is not to be confused with "Fairweather Fan" in that Causal makes no pretense of committment. In a certain sense, Casual Fan is a pure - though lukewarm - lover of sports; their attention can extend to everything from speed skating to Australian Rules Football, provided the time and situation is right. Casual fan's current sports preoccupations are usually highly correlated with those of Sports Illustrated's cover.
- The Fickle Lover - Much like Casual Fan, the Fickle Lover's enthusiasm is an unstable property, but Fickle Lover's interests extend solely to the major teams of his/her hometown or current/former area of residence. If the Fickle Lover is lucky, he or she will live in or hail from a sports town featuring enough teams to always provide at least one reasonable success.
- The Diehard - The Diehard is someone we all know - a devout supporter of a single team. While The Diehard is more prevalent on a per-capita basis in areas which have only one major team (such as my former state of Nebraska), they can be found in every area of the country.
- The Homer - The Homer is distinguished from the Diehard only in his/her extension of loyalty to not just one team, but a single team in several sports (usually though not always from the same town, hence the moniker).
- The Geek - [ed. note - I am a mix of The Geek and The Diehard] - The Geek's trademark is an irrational devotion of cognitive resources to the minutiae of a given sport. To provide an example related in no way to your dear diarist, The Geek may find himself being occasionally mocked by his wife for knowing the regular season records and playoff destinies of every NFL team dating back for 15 years.
- The Ultrafan - The Ultrafan takes The Geek's devotion and extends it to an array of sports. Ultrafan is regarded with a mixture of awe, fear, and concern during contests of sports trivia knowledge. Ultrafan will keep his or her television tuned to ESPN at all viewing times, and will regard Darts Championship coverage as an act of God that must be respected and attended to.
So there you have it. I'd like to know where all of you stand and, if you're feeling up to it, why you think you got that way.