Take Back This Sign!

Play this: “Lonesome Loser” – Little River Band

(Ed. note: I have been adding significantly to this post since I published it.)

Trash, seen on exiting Dodger Stadium after the Los Angeles squad eliminated the cursed Chicago Cubs. It was a surreal feeling, happy that the local team won and seeing all the happy people, but knowing all the booing and aggressive, brainless vitriol I’d seen directed towards Cubs fans at the game will be directed at me, should the Phillies advance to face the Dodgers.

I still remember the first Phillies game I went to as a young kid. It was against the Braves in the old Veterans Stadium.  Some Braves fans sat right in front of us, and I was baffled the whole time, wondering what they were doing there. They cheered all the Braves plays, and were not mean or anything. But, as the Braves won the game, they were happy and I wasn’t, and there was something that seemed unfair about that. To this day, I wonder if opposing fans in a home stadium care about the kids whose time they ruin? And, on the flip side. I can see the hope in that handmade sign. Hope that was crushed. I’m sure whoever made it was young and took a heap of abuse for it. I’m probably too sensitive about this. I mean, it was probably adorable when I saw that wheelchair guy in the James Loney jersey to teach his 8-year-old daughter to give the “throat-slash” gesture to Cubs fans. And the drunk fans ejected for flipping people off and swearing? It’s just the fun of sports, yeah?

Is it important that I deck out in Phillies regalia if I go to a Phils-Dodgers game at Dodger Stadium?  Would it be make more sense to do so if I had friends who were Phillies fans? Is it worth the tense confrontation with beer-soaked Dodger fans just to wear a red hat when all around you wear blue? Am I jinxing the Phillies by thinking about this before they clinch against the Brewers?

All the answers will come soon. I can’t wait to be throat-slashed!

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