Before I get into the meat of this post, let me extend my congratulations to WNST‘s Drew Forrester on the arrival of his baby boy, Ethan. Here’s to good health and good times for the young family.
Moving on…
NST’s plucky leader, “Nasty” Nestor Aparicio, has a blog post up describing his efforts to organize FTB2 as “on life support.” His basic point is that not enough people care enough about the team, and that he can’t overcome that kind of apathy.
He also talks about the team’s “core audience of worshippers” — which I take to mean folks who are still fans, which means me and many of you — and accuses us of “buying the lies and the propaganda.” He also called folks like us “idiots” (or, to be fair, it might have been “fools”) on the radio this morning.
Classic Nestor — gotta love it.
I’m not the least bit surprised that FTB2 looks like it won’t happen. It shoudn’t happen. Last year’s event was a way for like-minded individuals to come together and be a part of something. I was happy to be there. I would never do it again.
That event was a purging. We went on the record to say we were unhappy with Angelos‘ stewardship of the team. After that day I closed the book on pointless anger and started developing a new outlook, one that focused on the fun and positive aspects of being an Orioles fan. Not in support of bad decisions, but in spite of them.
There are some things you can’t change, and some you can. You can’t force Angelos to sell the team and you can’t force the front office to make the decisions you wish they’d make. But you can choose not to beat the same old dead horse. You can choose to align yourself with progress and good times.
Being positive and having fun won’t put “Baltimore” back on the road jerseys, it won’t sign Mark Teixeira, and it won’t win a pennant. But neither will bitching and moaning.
I like Nestor and I like his station, but he and I have a fundamental difference of opinion. In the long run, my perspective means I can evaluate the team honestly, criticize them when necessary, and have fun no matter what. His perspective skips steps one and three, places all the emphasis on step two, and ultimately leads nowhere.
I’ll be fair and break some news here: there aren’t going to be a lot of people participating in our little gathering on September 8th. There is a lot of apathy out there. The main thing we’ve accomplished in terms of attendance is to fire up the Red Sox fan base. We’ll probably be outnumbered even more than we would be on a normal Sox night. C’est la vie.
But the idea has already been a success. It has put a notion into the collective consciousness that we should all consider what it means to be a fan. In that sense alone I think we’ve already done our job, and in doing so have accomplished more than a second Free the Birds rally ever could.