Worst Fans in the Country?

My first real substantive idea for a blog post was a general rant on Philly fans.  The Pens had just finished bullying the boys from Broad Street, 4-1, and I was feeling a bit punchy toward Philly fans in general ever since an asshole friend of mine waited exactly 5 minutes after the Scotty Reynolds runner fell to taunt me via text message.  This guy didn't attend Nova; he went to Millersville, who I might add, valiantly fought their way to a 10-17 record and ended on the season on a high note by only losing by 4 to storied Mansfield University.  All that is probably good reason to ignore the text, but I can't help it.  This guy typifies the Philly sports fan...I hate Philly sports fans.  Period.

All that being said, I didn't want this first post to be a negative one.  Didn't want to get things started like that.  Then I realized two things: 1) I have a born tendency toward ranting and 2) there is a lot of shit to rant about.  So I'm embracing it, charging forward like Ernest Shackleton in a blizzard, and kicking this blog off with a rant against my least favorite fan base in the country.  That's right, the first target of the Fifth's unwavering gaze is you, Seattle fandom.

Again, I hate Philly fans.  They're simultaneously uninformed yet arrogant, hometown-biased yet quick to accuse others of the same.  In short, not only are they brutish, intractable and foul mouthed, they are hypocrites to boot.  But at least they know when to start a god-damned slow clap to get their team going.

The scene:  April 18th, 2009...Safeco Field.  Fast forward to the bottom of the 8th, Mariner's down 2-0 to the Tigers.  Edwin Jackson (for real?) is pitching brilliantly for Detroit, allowing only 6 scattered base runners through 7 2/3 innings.  Frankling Gutierrez, 9th in the M's lineup just swung badly on strike two, the count is 0-2 and it's not looking good for the Emerald City squad.  Somewhere behind me a Detroit fan starts a slow clap, perfectly reasonable if you're pulling for the boys from Motown.  You know what isn't reasonable?  For the rest of my section to join in.  

It gets worse.  Three pitches later, Gutierrez worked his way to a full count, now I'm expecting to some support for the hometown boys.  Is that a slow clap I hear?  Nope, it's just the collective creaking of aging hipster vertabrae as turn their heads to watch the wave they just started circle the field.  I hate the wave more than I hate Philly fans. 

Gutierrez made it on base, by the way.  Jim Leyland walked out of the dugout and the infield came to mound...Jackson was done for the night.  Of course, Ichiro (normally very reliable) watches strike three pass him by...end of the inning.  Oh well, at least the M's have a chance here...if they can just get through Detroit's 8-9-1 hitters, the heart of the order is coming up in the 9th against Fernando Rodney, who's warming up in the bullpen.  He had 19 save opportunities last year and blew 6 of them...6!  I'm liking the M's chances.  The 10,000 fans that decided to stream from the field at that point, however, apparently disagreed.

Sean White (not the snowboarder, I checked) steps into relief for the M's.  A Washington boy, from across the state in Pullman, he played college ball locally here at UW.  He pitches nicely, allowing only a single base runner, and he really would have been out of the inning earlier after inducing a double play grounder to short, but Curtis Granderson is damn fast.  Of course, the Mariner's fans next to me decided that Granderson reached base because Jose Lopez is a 'below average defensive 2nd baseman', a sentiment clearly born out in the statistics.

Doesn't have a video game named after him

Anyway, fast forward to the bottom of the 9th, with the aforementioned Rodney already allowing first to Endy Chavez and a collective rumbling begins in the throats of the 300 fans left in Safeco.  I can't figure out if they were cheering because their three-hole batter was at the plate representing the tying run, or if it was just because their three-hole hitter happens to be the corpse of Ken Griffey Jr. 

Can we really still call him Junior at this point?

Well the rally fell short.  Ken 'Senior' Griffey, Jr. popped out harmlessly and Beltre laced a fastball that unfortunately lined directly to Josh Anderson.  Mike Sweeney followed with a feeble grounder to third, end of game.

So let's sum up.  Half of the attendance walked out of the 9th inning of a very winnable ball game, Section 328 decided to slow clap to fire up Edwin Jackson, the crowd paid closer attention to manufacturing a double wave (two waves travelling in opposite directions) than they did to the game in the 8th and 9th innings, and apparently the only thing that can get the crowd to focus on the gigantic green field with the brown box in front of them is the entrance music of a former home town hero who's 6 months away from applying to the AARP.  Mojo Rising, baby!