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One problem with watching so much sports, or just broadcast TV for that matter, is the commercials that get played every break and press themselves into your brain. For me, the one that's grinding my gears the hardest lately is the one for baseball products with all these kids talking about how big a fan of their teams they are, and they prove it by whoever buys the most MLB licensed crap. And they are horrible people. What family only loves one particular league and dresses all their kids, with different teams on the same kid? It's almost as bad as the football family whose each member is a fan of a different team, and appeared to swap allegiances based on just moving to a new town or marrying someone or eating a sandwich.
But that got me thinking, how would you prove your "fanhood," if push came to shove somehow. So I thought it would be something about the knowledge of your team, your long experience following them. So I decided that a good test would be to see how many players you could name who played for your team at some point. It wouldn't matter how long they played (Piazza would count for Marlins), or when, or in what incarnation (you could count Boston, Milwaukee, or Atlanta Braves). I would tend to count the Expos different from the Nationals, but whatever, there are few hard and fast rules in this game. I subjectively decided 100 would be a good goal, at least for most teams. If you're a Rays or DBacks fan, maybe that would be tough.
So I started this morning trying to name all the Phillies I could think of, and it has been surprisingly difficult. My memory isn't what it used to be, but even so, after cycling through who I could recall from my childhood with the big teams of the Schmidt-Carlton-Rose era, the 1993 team, and the 2008 team, and the Hall of Famers, I'm flailing. I spent five solid minutes trying to remember the name of a guy I really liked in the early 90s who had a tiny bit of heat as a rookie but then vanished quickly (Kevin Stocker), and I'm not just mentally going through my collection trying to picture the names on cards from the 60s, 70s, and 80s. So far I'm up to 60. I'll get to 100 eventually, I think, but this is turning out to be a challenge, at least for me.
Anyone care to try? No cheating.
But that got me thinking, how would you prove your "fanhood," if push came to shove somehow. So I thought it would be something about the knowledge of your team, your long experience following them. So I decided that a good test would be to see how many players you could name who played for your team at some point. It wouldn't matter how long they played (Piazza would count for Marlins), or when, or in what incarnation (you could count Boston, Milwaukee, or Atlanta Braves). I would tend to count the Expos different from the Nationals, but whatever, there are few hard and fast rules in this game. I subjectively decided 100 would be a good goal, at least for most teams. If you're a Rays or DBacks fan, maybe that would be tough.
So I started this morning trying to name all the Phillies I could think of, and it has been surprisingly difficult. My memory isn't what it used to be, but even so, after cycling through who I could recall from my childhood with the big teams of the Schmidt-Carlton-Rose era, the 1993 team, and the 2008 team, and the Hall of Famers, I'm flailing. I spent five solid minutes trying to remember the name of a guy I really liked in the early 90s who had a tiny bit of heat as a rookie but then vanished quickly (Kevin Stocker), and I'm not just mentally going through my collection trying to picture the names on cards from the 60s, 70s, and 80s. So far I'm up to 60. I'll get to 100 eventually, I think, but this is turning out to be a challenge, at least for me.
Anyone care to try? No cheating.