A favor for a faraway fan
This is a fluff piece, but it’s also not a shitpost, in the words of the internet. Half of Browntown is for shits and giggles, or more specifically one-half of each email I send out is usually for shits and giggles. (Let’s be honest, more like four-fifths.) But today I have a favor to ask.
Ten years ago, I moved from San Diego to Europe. Since then, I’ve grown more fond of European football (soccer, as it were) and when the Spanos family moved the Chargers to L.A. (I mean Carson lol) all I had left were my Padres and Tottenham Hotspur (because I am a masochist)—I kept following other sports but with increasing detachment. Athletes in the NFL and NBA and NHL transformed into ideas, pawns on a fantasy sports chess board. The fewer games I saw—the less I heard the roar of a crowd or the squeak of a sneaker or the crash of the boards I heard in person or on TV—the less they felt human.
So I get it. I get why fans forget that the players are people with emotions and struggles. It happens to me too.
Nothing, absolutely nothing excuses the vile, heartbreaking racism inflicted on the three black heroes on the England team that missed penalty kicks in the European championship final. Nothing. Many of those tweets and Instagram replies came surely from racist scum and trolls not just from England but from every dark corner of the world, but there were also plenty of local ‘I hate racists but I also hate players missing penalty kicks’; plenty of boos in the stadium; plenty of 'I’m not a racist but I hate players that suck.’ Much like racist trolling and booing, I’m not convinced there’s an excuse for non-racist trolling and booing. I’m not sure there’s an excuse for the abuse of hometown players for missing shots in the first place, or for not performing the way you hoped.
San Diego has its share of old-fashioned American racism, but I was lucky to grow up in a city with a baseball team created in the summer of love; absent the historical poison faced by fans in Boston, Philly or Atlanta, to name a few old towns, there was no racist baseball past to reckon with. The original fans received the original five black Padres with open arms in 1969, for the most part.
It didn’t hurt that Nate Colbert was an absolute fuckin’ stud. But of course it shouldn’t matter how good you are.
It is with such enthusiasm that Padre fans have historically hated racism that they would rain boos on Eric Show, Dave Dravecky and Mark Thurmond in the 1980s, who were members of the John Birch society, which has some ties to racism:
I, current Scandinavian socialist, am no fan of the far-right John Birch Society, but damn, dude. These are young people who spend most of their time practicing and playing and traveling and not seeing their families and trying to earn the money you pay them when you purchase tickets. Athletes beloved by their teammates. They’re not history majors. They’re still learning shit. If teammates turn their backs on a player, as the Dodgers have turned on Trevor Bauer—incomplete as that story itself is—than I am inclined to believe a player ought to hear about it. But take Eric Hosmer.
I don’t like that Eric Hosmer is an anti-vaxxer, or at least vax-hesitant, especially with games getting shut down as the Delta variant infects even vaccinated players; I don’t like stupid things Eric Hosmer has said about analytics, I don’t like that Eric Hosmer has a negative WAR, and I don’t like that Eric Hosmer can’t seem to dig a ball out of the dirt to save his life. But if I am to believe the reports I hear on Twitter and from my game-attending friends, are a vocal few really booing Eric Hosmer as he takes the field?
Hosmer isn’t anything close to perfect, and if his were the only case of verbal abuse I’d heard I’d point out that he does seem to be trying to improve, as I recently discovered, hard as improving is when you’re in your thirties. But sadly, his is not the only case.
There were choruses of boos for Chris Paddack as he left the mound after a rough outing. Tommy Pham said he’d never heard such awful abuse in his career as he did from Friar fans as he limped out of the gate this year. Here’s what he told the U-T:
“Fans have been very disrespectful this year,” Pham said. “I actually saw a fan who was talking (trash) to me. I saw him outside the stadium. I said, ‘What’s up? You still want to talk that (trash)?’ He went completely blank. That just shows you people feel entitled.”
That was at Petco Park, where he said it is “common” to hear people taunt him about an offseason incident in which he was stabbed and required surgery.
Even poor young Jorge Mateo, who may or may not be bad at hitting, we don’t know for sure as he’s not getting many chances, has heard boos as he steps to the plate. I can hear them on TV.
I am buzzing, constantly, watching the Padres from afar. We are finally good again. But I’m also giddy seeing players from so many backgrounds having so much goddamn fun together, buzzing from the Padres getting a bilingual manager because there’s so many Spanish-speaking players, from the Padres needing not one but two translators for our Asian players from different places. And I’m buzzing from seeing players named Caratini, Darvish, Kim, Machado, Tatis, Cronenworth, and yes, Hosmer, gathered on the mound and not being booed for being Puerto Rican and Dominican and Korean and Japanese and Cuban and American, all of them American, even if honorary, our boys.
But do they need to be abused for sucking either?
Intense guy, are you not tired? Have you not abused enough Padres? Or maybe you’re new. Maybe you weren’t Friar Faithful yet as the abuse came down on the Headleys and the Gyorkos and the Amaristas and the Quackenbushes. It wasn’t their fault, but you can hardly blame fans. When you turn to sports for an escape from your troubles and what you get is a football team that fucks off to you-know-where and the Padres cosplaying as a minor-league team, you’re bound to boo a little. Bound to abuse a few players, uncool as it was. But now?
If you’re reading this, intense guy, I know I’m not going to change your mind, and I know you’ll let me know.
But until I can get back for a game myself, would everyone else do me a favor?
In the second half, if you’re at a game and intense guy in your section starts booing or abusing Friars, respectfully and pleasantly remind them that the Padres are good at baseball again. Remind them that our boys get abused enough in Boston and Philly and Atlanta, and that even if it’s no longer for racist reasons it can still feel like it. Maybe buy intense guy an IPA for me, if you like, in exchange for a little positivity. Remind them that the dudes on the field are people too, and that they get enough abuse on the internet for one lifetime.
And yeah, maybe a few of our guys are a little overpaid, but they’re on the most joyful team in the league and they’re trying hard to win a championship for the city. For us. If you don’t dare chat up intense guy, which is understandable, at least match intense guy’s level of hate with your own level of love for me. It’s been a long couple of years. I miss those guys.
And if you’re some kind of Colin Robinson who lives on boos and abuse, I made you a sign to take to Petco: