Negativity is No Fun

So my post the other day sucked. After reading it again, I worded it so poorly that I just decided to delete it. After thinking more about what I wrote (lesson learned: don't blog angry), my logic was just wrong. I'm less of a baseball fan today than I was a few years ago because I have a pretty full career and family schedule these days, not the other way around. Just think, if you sit and watch every single one of your team's games during the season, you are dedicating around 500 hours a year (over 20 solid days) to baseball fandom. I still love my White Sox win or lose, and in reality I watch them when I can, but now that I'm not a college kid anymore, family and career come first.

Outside of Ryan's fiery response to me, we talked about how it's funny that our angry rants always seem to get more hits than any other type of post we write, unless it's about Erin Andrews, of course. The post I wrote unfortunately was the post that pushed the Victoria Times over the 30,000 hit mark all time (thanks to everyone for checking us out). It made me realize that negativity and hatred are pretty strong on the internet, whether it be Boston fans claiming Jeter has AIDS, racist websites, blogs talking about how our president is an evil oil obsessed tyrant, and other blogs that talk about how our Democrats are tree hugging Commies that want to take your guns away. None of this is healthy discussion, but it sure gets attention.

One reason why Ryan wanted me to write here was to be the "bad guy" that rips on the Twins, but it's actually harder than it seems. So since I'm taking a grassroots approach to fighting internet negativity starting today, I'm going to reword my attacks on them as compliments. Let's see how it works: The Twins have a lot of home grown talent, and they handle their payroll in a very intelligent way. In fact, they will once again be very high on my bang for the buck ratings this year. They always have a great minor leaguer up their sleeves, and I think their lack of big names can cause arrogant teams like the White Sox to take them lightly. Their style of play is frustrating for the opposing fans to watch, but it's effective. As Ryan said, taking that page out of the Twins playbook is what helped the White Sox so much in 2005 (along with unbelievably good pitching). Another thing I admire about the Twins is that guys like Delmon Young can go there and behave, leading to good team chemistry and a happy clubhouse, while high paid teams sometimes have horrible chemistry and are very outspoken in a bad way. I really only dislike the Twins because they are usually standing in the way of my favorite team from making the playoffs. Other than that, their lack of power hitters and personalities for most of my life have made them pretty uninteresting to me. And if they have fun personalities, blame ESPN, FOX, and TBS for not telling me about them, because I don't live in Minnesota.

Let's try to give compliments to teams that I could never root for: Notre Dame had a nice win today over Purdue, and an impressive history. Once Michigan figures out the spread offense, they will be a force to be reckoned with. Here's the hardest one: If the Cubs win the World Series this year, they will definitely deserve it, because they look like they are the best team.

I want to take more of an objective approach towards sports, and just enjoy the games and of course, the stats, and not let sports get me so frustrated. I grew up loving the 49ers, still do, but I actually enjoy the NFL more since they started to suck about 9 years ago. It gave me a chance to appreciate the talent on other teams, and enjoy watching all the games, instead of worrying if they would be a threat to the Niners. I can honestly say I don't hate any NFL teams anymore, and that makes watching more fun because I'm not disappointed if a team I hate wins. A Niners win brightens my day, but even if they lose, I had a great day watching football.

I think the approach I have toward the NFL is the approach that more hardcore sports fans and angry blog readers should take, and I'm going to try to apply it over to baseball and college football (already do it for the NBA and NHL). Hopefully it will at least lead to some better posts.

One more note: Screw you, Cubs. I can have 1 team that I love to hate, right?