Being A Sports Vulture

How 'bout them A's? They really are quite a team. Billy Beane is a genius! He trades away two of the best pitchers in baseball over the winter and gets some young pitchers and some other young guys. The team looks just awful for a while, but gets it together and goes on a tear. And they're doing it with no money! And they're really young, so they'll be together for years! What a great team!

OK, those of you who know me know that I'm not really an A's fan. I'm a Dodgers fan. Most years, I bleed for them. As one of my other posts described in probably what would seem to most people to be pretty ridiculous detail, Kirk Gibson's home run in the 1998 World Series (against the A's!) has been one of the better moments in my life. I have experienced lots of ups and downs with the Dodgers. Down: Ozzie Smith's home run in the 1985 NLCS. Up: Steve Finley's division-clinching home run against the Giants on the next-to-last day of the season last year (eat that, Bobby Thomson and Joe Morgan). Down: Bill Russell twice using old, decrepit Eddie Murray as a pinch-hitter with the bases loaded and one out in crucial situations in September 1997 and Murray twice hitting into soul-sucking double plays. Up: Rick Monday's home run in the top of the 9th of Game 5 of the 1981 NLCS to win the pennant, which Mr. Fraley let us watch in class in 6th grade. Down: Trevor Wilson shutting out the Dodgers at Candlestick on the next-to-last-day of the season in 1991, allowing the Braves to clinch the division after the Dodgers had a 9-game lead at the All-Star break, a situation made even worse by the fact that Wilson was on my Rotisserie team, so I was winning money as my Dodgers died. Up: the 1981 World Series, with the Dodgers finally beating the Yankees after 1977 and 1978.

As a kid, I totally bought into the whole Dodger Way thing. Of course, Steve Garvey was a model human being who was going to be a senator some day. Of course, no other organization would have had the foresight to have Garvey, Davey Lopes, Bill Russell and Ron Cey start playing together in the minors. Of course, no other organizaton would have found Fernando Valenzuela pitching down there in Mexico. Of course, it was time for Dusty Baker to go after 1983, when he started slowing down. It made me proud -- still does, really -- that my team was the team that brought Jackie Robinson to the majors and integrated baseball. I like that Sandy Koufax -- the greatest left-handed pitcher ever, who stuck to his principles and didn't pitch the first game of the 1965 World Series on Yom Kippur -- pitched for my team.

Of course, a lot of the Dodger Way thing was always BS. As far as I know, the Dodgers were the only team whose players fessed up to snorting coke during games. Like almost all teams, the Dodgers have done a lot of stupid things in signing free agents (Dave Goltz, Don Stanhouse, Kevin Brown, Darryl Strawberry, Eric Davis, etc., etc. -- but see Kirk Gibson). The brain chemistry imprinted on me in my youth, however, remains and the Dodgers are my team.

That being said, the Dodgers stink this year. They had put together a pretty good and very entertaining team beginning in about 2002 that eventually won the division last year. It kind of started to look like their teams from the '80s. There were some home-grown guys (Adrian Beltre, Paul LoDuca). There were some guys that they got in trades (Cesar Izturis, Odalis Perez). There was a decent free agent (Shawn Green). And, of course, there was the guy that the Dodgers figured out how to use properly, Eric Gagne, and who kicked butt ('til he got hurt). And then, they tore it down, trying to get better with free agents. The result of all of this and some injuries is that the Dodgers this year not only stink, but are unrecognizable, so I haven't been into them all year. (I mean, they stunk in 1993, but that was Mike Piazza's rookie year and they knocked the Giants out of the playoffs. You have to have something to work from.) Maybe next year.

This unfortunate turn of events has turned me into a Sports Vulture. Basically, the A's jelled and got good with a young hustling team, so I'm following them, rooting for them. There's no special attachment there. It's just fun. Go A's!

The problem with this is that it is Unethical Sports Fan Behavior. You are not allowed to pick up with a new team and follow them just because they are winning. It isn't right. This is different than Playoff Rooting, where you root for a team other than yours after your team has been knocked out. You have to have a rooting interest in the playoffs, it's a demand of being a Sports Fan (even if you're just rooting for a Team That Is Not The Yankees or a Team That Is Not The Lakers). It is also different than being A Bandwagon Rider, a person who is more or less unattached to any team who picks up with a winning team and roots like crazy while they're winning big (e.g., most Yankees fans, people who started wearing Kobe Bryant jerseys in public when the Lakers were winning rings).

Being a Sport Vulture is lower behavior. You are a fan of a team and yet you abandon them in their hour of need to root for another -- someone else's team. For shame. It's the opposite of what Aragorn says as the Armies of Men arrive at the Black Gate in Return of the King. He says, "There may come a day when we forsake all bonds of loyalty. But it is not this day!" In being a Sport Vulture, you say, "Hey, today is the day to forsake the bonds of loyalty." You didn't earn the right to enjoy this new team's success. Someone else suffered for it. Someone else is much worthier. Hang your head, Sports Vulture.

There are real A's fans (our softball captain Dan for example) who suffered through the A's post-Eckersley, pre-Giambi lean years and who deserve to enjoy the fruits of the A's' success. But not me. It's a dirty kind of fun though. Maybe I'll get some A's playoff tickets. God knows that they have enough seats in Oakland.