Fair Weather Fan - I

Fair Weather Fan - I remember listening to Pat Reusse and Joe Soucheray on the old Monday Night Sportstalk show back in 1987, during the American League Championship Series. The boys were sneering down their noses at the full houses of fans at the Metrodome, wondering where they'd been the previous year, when the Twinks were battling for the AL West cellar against the Chisox, drawing 6-8,000 fans a night. "Minnesotans are such a bunch of wussy, fair-weather baseball fans", rasped Reusse. "Where are you when the team stinks, huh?"

I thought about it for a second, driving down the street to my band's practice. "Probably doing something that they don't think is a complete fargin' waste of time", I answered.

"I mean, what do these franchises think - that just because they're a local sports team - hell, even a local sports team in a sport I love, like Baseball - that I owe them unquestioning loyalty?" I said, louder this time, as I drove up the Lyndale exit on 94. "Jeezawfriday, you stuffed shirts act like actually doing things we enjoy is some sort of base character defect!", I said, yelling by now.

"I mean", I hollered, apoplectic now, as a couple of cute girls in a nearby car watched, goggle-eyed, "it's not like the Twins or the Vikings or the North Stars are, like, the Constitution or our country or our families. IS IT?"

Souch and Reusse prattled on.

Well, that's how I remember the scene.

My motto when it comes to sports teams; "What have you done for me lately". And I'm damn proud of it. Life is too short to waste your time on the stupid and futile.

(Except for the Chicago Bears. I've been a steadfast Bearss fan since I was four years old. Every year since 1970, I've predicted "next year is the Bears' year!". Unlike Vikes fans, I've been right once.)

So anyway - Go Wild! Until the good times are over, anyway, when I'll promptly stop caring, and switch to the flavor of the month (when it comes to local pro sports, anyway).

And if Patrick Reusse doesn't like it, he can get out there and mow my lawn. I'm a fair weather fan - and without about 100 million of us, professional sports would still be on the back pages of the Sports section, and Pat Reusse and Sid Hartman would be donating plasma to make ends meet!

Say it loud; I'm a fairweather fan, and I'm proud.

Now let's play hockey!