From: charly@hal.COM (Charly Rhoades)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.baseball
Subject: Re: Suncoast Monstrosity
Summary: People Never *Deserve* Sports-teams
Date: 18 Aug 92 17:39:02 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: HaL Computer Systems, Inc.
NNTP-Posting-Host: renoir.hal.com

Perhaps the burgeoning FAQ should include an admittedly abstract, but
seemingly necessary discussion of this reccurring concept of people
deserving a baseball team.  Here it is again.  The latest incarnation:

In article <1992Aug18.130956.28490@leland.Stanford.EDU> altus@leland.Stanford.EDU (Steve Altus) writes:
>In article <1992Aug17.222341.4774@odin.corp.sgi.com> luigi@sgi.com (Randy Palermo) writes:
>>>In a previous article altus@leland.Stanford.EDU (Steve Altus) writes:
>>>
>>>...but i must tell you, as one who
>>>has lived in both places very recently, no matter what the die-hard 
>>>Giant fans here say, from what I'VE seen i must admit that the fans in 
>>>Tampa/St. Pete deserve a team much more than the ones here...
>>>
>>Why do you say that the fans in Tampa/St. Pete deserve a team more then the
>>FANS in SF? Is it because they built a dome to steal a team from someone
>>else? 
>
>Don't be stupid.  Would i post to say i thought the fans were more deserving
>there on my inside info that there is a new stadium there and not one here?

[more of the same deleted...]

>>What happens to your theory after the rose is off the bloom. The team
>>has been there for a few years, they're losing, the newness has worn off[...]
>>Will the Tampa/St. Pete area deserve the team more then? 
>
>yes, they will.

[more of the same deleted]

>Don't get me wrong;  i love the (SF) Bay Area, and i love the people.  I
>would much more likely be here than in Tampa.  But from what i personally 
>have seen, i just don't think the fans here deserve a team as much as the
>people in Tampa.  
>
> -- steve altus

As a fun little exercise, what happens to the meaning of these previous
sentences if you replace "deserve" with "support"?   Steve?  Randy?  Could
you both agree with what the other says if we talk not about "deserving"
the Giants, but of "supporting" them?  From my standpoint, I think your other
statements would still ring true, and any apparrent contradiction between the
two positions becomes less contentious.

"People" truly *deserve* few things, but they are the biggies:  The right to
live free until encroaching on others' freedom; a civility or respect in
interactions with other people; perhaps even a minimum of food, water,
and shelter; a few other grandiose things.  But nobody *deserves* an
entertainment form.  I deserve a baseball team as much as I deserve MTV,
Andrew Dice Clay, and Pat Buchannan.  (But I do choose to support baseball
more than these and many other things...)

I think that's what we are really talking about semantically: supporting
rather than deserving.  And to keep that in mind would not only be more
accurate, it would also reduce the potential for this peculiar brand
of low-heat flamage.

Just a few observations from an undeserving fan of the Pittsburgh Pirates,
Steelers, and Penguins.
-- 
   Charly Rhoades               Now I could walk into any old bar
                                and find a fight without looking too far
   HaL Computer Systems         But I never killed someone I don't know
   charly@hal.com               just because someone told me to.  --CvB