I Hate You, Bandwagon Fans

Coincidentally, I also hate Dane Cook

I'm not really a fan of the World Cup. While I do understand why people enjoy it, I know that it's just not for me. I don't know any of the players, I don't know all the rules, AKA I don't give a fuck who wins or loses or ties (note: ties are gay) or which country's dictator murders the goalie for failing to block 7,831 consecutive shots by a vastly superior team. In the end, it's just soccer, and I don't like the sport. Would I ever care about a New York Red Bulls game? Fuck no. I'd rather watch an old man get twisted up in a lawn hose and fall down a hill than watch a bunch of guys run around AstroTurf in front of a crowd of 12. But again, this is preference, so I don't judge. I don't like the sport, so I don't watch any form of it.

Personally, I save my rooting stamina and invest myself in the sports I truly enjoy to watch. I live and die with every insignificant headline. Wait, Darrelle Revis is unhappy? Unhappy with what? HOW UNHAPPY IS HE???

(chugs vile of cyanide)

I can't sleep some nights when the Yankees bullpen blows a game. FUCK YOU CHAN HO PARK, YOU SON OF A BITCH. Me, crazy? Try bat-shit crazy. But you can bet your ass that I know what it's like to be a real fan of a team. A fan that doesn't go to games just so he can tell his boss he went to a game. I go to games to get drunk and lose my voice and heckle opposing bullpens and offer my opinion about double-switches to a father and son sitting three rows ahead of me even though the dad didn't ask for it and is whispering to his son that he would rather have him grow up and become a gay pornstar named "Boner Stallone" than ever become an obsessed asshole like the guy sitting three rows back spilling his beer everywhere and cracking peanuts all over himself like a homeless man.

The best part is, as obsessed as I am, there are people 100x more obsessed than me. For instance, I own a Joe Klecko throwback jersey that I handlle like I would the Holy Grail, or a lock of Derek Jeter's hair, or newborn Jesus. But...There is someone out there who owns 17 Joe Klecko jerseys and spends his nights lying them all out on the floor so he can roll around naked in them. It's a fact. I know the guy. His name is Alonzo.

Of course, there is the ying to the die-hard's yang. On the other end of the spectrum are bandwagon fans. Aren't familiar with the term? Bandwagon fans are people who will overnight become the biggest fan of whatever sport is choice at the moment. Remember back in January 2008 when the Giants went to the Super Bowl and suddenly EVERYONE in New York was a life-long Giants fan? Even the maintenance guy in my building who had moved to America from Ecuador three months prior was suddenly able to recite Amani Toomer's career stats. I was fucking amazed by the shameful jump of thousands of apathetic people onto the Giants' swelling bandwagon. I was also fucking pissed. Because even though I live and die with Roger Vick, Lance Mehl and Browning Nagle, and I absolutely HATE the Giants, I still felt for the die-hard Giants fans who invested time in watching bad Giants teams and then had to deal with amatuer hour on the biggest night of their fucking life.

And I felt some of it last year, too, when the Jets surprised everyone, myself included, and made their way to the AFC Championship. But I was ready for it. I became a fucking hawk overnight, searching for people who I knew didn't give a shit about the Jets just a few days earlier, but would suddenly claim to be life-long fans. I was ready to end friendships over it. I was ready to do 25-to-life. I WAS READY FOR BLOOD. I wanted to stumble across Dan the sales planner who I knew liked the 49ers telling someone he was always a Jets fan and his dad is a Jets fan and his Uncle Carl has season tickets and the only reason he likes the 49ers is because he knows Alex Smith from sleepaway camp...blah blah blah, you know what you get for statements like that, Dan? Insecticide to yo face!

The World Cup is a prime example of bandwagon-ism at it's worst. If people just rooted for their favorite country without feeling the need to continually prove their dedication, I wouldn't care. But when peers act disappointed with me for not caring about the competition, I want to staple their assholes to their faces. Since when did you start caring about sports, Lily? Last I heard you were too busy caring about the affair you're having with Frank to give a shit about a soccer game. GASP - did I just go there? FUCKING-A RIGHT I DID.

Do you really want to see dedication to soccer/football? Go to any pub in England and throw on a team USA jersey. Hooligans will beat you to death with a chair in seven seconds. And then the cops will come and they will use your dead face as a toilet. And then the cops and the hooligans will throw your lifeless body into a sewer. Because soccer hooligans are fucking psychotically dedicated to their respective teams. But they are awesomely psychotic, because they fucking beat each other to a pulp over who's a bigger fan of which firm or which club. I wish baseball fandom was like this. I would love to arm myself with a fucking tire iron and go bash down the door to some Red Sox bar in SoHo and battle like I'm motherfucking William Wallace. And then when the cops come they don't arrest you, no, they decide who won the battle and then everyone gets shitfaced together and tries to replace their teeth with broken pool chalk. Doesn't happen this way? Well in my mind it does, buddy.

If you want to act out this charade where you're such a fucking patriot to the USA soccer team or some huge fan of a sport, fine, but please do it with someone who is playing the same game that you are. You can bullshit each other until you puke. Go paint your fucking chests and head to some trendy bar and cheer and yell and act like you give-a-shit even though you really don't. And do you know how I know that you don't give a shit? Because in a day or two you will be over the whole thing. In a day or two, you won't be defeated. You will be back to form, being the fat dickhead you are who smells like sauerkraut that's been sitting in the sun for too long. But like most idiots obsessed with a team, I have a hard time getting over big losses. I spent two weeks trying to get over the Jets loss to the Colts, even though I KNEW they had no real shot. Back in 2004, my brain literally erased any memories from the whole month of October, because I cannot relive the horseshit that happened over those 9 days, or I will scoop out my eyeballs with a melonballer. Does this make me cool? Abso-fucking-lutely not. But at least I'm not pretending, Mr. and Mrs. matching Landon Donovan jersey with the Modell's price tags hanging off them.

So, when the US eventually loses to fucking Italy or Finland or wherever, don't come crying to me. Because I will feign sorrow at first to lure you into a cosset of trust, but then burn your house down. The lesson? Dedicate your life to a sport that has no significance on your actual life, asshole, jeez, what's so fucking complicated about that?Look at me, look how well it's turned out for me?

/scrolls MLB Trade Rumors for 7 hours