I don’t want to presume to tell you how to be a fan, but . . . here I am doing just that. I’m just trying to be helpful. And like so many other people whose attempts at helpfulness produce nothing but aggravation, I’m willing to take that risk for you. I’m a giver.
What I want is for you to enjoy being a Cubs fan and to avoid looking stupid in the process. That’s not to say I don’t look stupid. It’s too late for me. Save yourself. If you start by eliminating these expressions from your personal Cubbie lexicon, you’ll also be saving me a couple thousand facepalms a week.
10. Player X needs to step up.
In basketball, sure. But in baseball? Players step up when they’re told. It’s your turn to hit. Go step up. If it’s not, sit down and find a new cliché. If a player has a bat in his hands, he should try to be as productive as possible. If he’s wearing a glove or a mitt, he should try to prevent runs from scoring. A baseball player’s duties in any given moment are pretty well defined for him. The guy who tries to do more than he can is either trying too hard or wasn’t trying hard enough to begin with. Either way, stepping up is an indicator of stupidity in baseball.
9. This loss is on Player X.
There are virtually no instances in which one player acts completely independently so as to determine the outcome of a single play let alone the entire game. For every batter who strikes out, there’s a pitcher who bests him. A pitcher can’t just give up 8 runs in the ninth; he needs the cooperation of his defense and the opposing batters to yield that result. Baseball is a game made up entirely of confrontations. Every showdown has at least one winner and at least one loser. To place the outcome of a game on one player is to ignore the efforts, failures, and victories of everyone else involved. And that’s dumb.
8. Booooo.
I just don’t get this one. It’s just funny that there are still people who actually cup their hands around their mouths, lean back, and say the word Boo. Educated, evolved human beings. I don’t get it.
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