How Is it that winning a
championship in professional sports can make many “fans” so proud of their city
that they want to burn it down?
After last night’s (as I
write this) Game 5 victory, “fans” chanting “Knicks in five!” incinerated a
school bus. Actually five school buses. (Five police cars were
assaulted, too. Good thing the series didn’t go seven games.) “Your” team wins,
you destroy stuff? What does one have to do with the other? Seems odd to me.
But that is just the viewpoint of one rational, straight white Christian male,
so take it with a grain of salt. That said, I am an avid sports fan, and yet
I’ve never so much as deflated a cop car’s tire after a big victory. (Full
disclosure: I am a Minnesota sports fan, so I haven’t had many
opportunities to do so.)
If folks like these had been
around when the United States defeated both Germany and Japan in World War 2,
they might have summarily started looting and burning the victorious nation and
soon-to-be world's only superpower. Twice. I find this to be ironic. And, not
to put too fine a point on it, insane.
What if, say, Scotty Scheffler
won the Masters by sinking a 30-foot putt for a birdie on the 18th hole... and
his fans proceeded to destroy Augusta National Golf Club?
Is it traditional for the
family of a student's spelling bee contest winner to set fire to the venue at
which it was held? No? Then why the difference? That is a rhetorical question,
one to which I believe most of us know the answer. These weren’t fans. They
were hooligans, thugs, and criminals who took advantage of the opportunity.
Culture matters. Standards
matter. Expectations (and assumed consequences) matter. As do simple
human decency and dignity. But, what the hell, “Knicks in five! Knicks in
five!”
Now let’s torch Manhattan.
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