Here it is, this is my venting on the stupidity of sports fans and journalists. This is what drove me to take my much needed hiatus from reading anything outside of scores and really just watching the games, and nothing else. I'm really not an arrogant person, but there is just so much stupidity, some that is just accepted without anyone really thinking about what they're saying, like they're just repeating points that ESPN tells them to make. Here is where I say what is stupid, and from there explain why it is stupid.
Player X is Better than Player Y Because He Won More Championships
The next person to use this argument should get smacked in the mouth. This, of course is only when talking about team sports. Of course when you have individual sports this is a perfectly reasonable argument. However, in team sports players don't win championships, teams do, no exceptions. Even in the NBA, which has the biggest reputation of an individual sport. Jordan didn't win anything without Pippen or Grant/Rodman. Those Bulls teams also had incredible supporting casts which may not have had great individual players, but had the right players. Longley was a great center to have there. Wennington was a very good backup center for that team, especially with his ability to hit that 15-18 foot jumper and draw other centers out of the paint. LeBron hasn't won without Wade and Bosh. Kobe never won without Shaq or Gasol, and you can even say that Gasol even outperformed Kobe the last year the Lakers won it with him.
In other leagues this argument looks even more stupid. In the NFL this is most often used with quarterbacks. Quarterbacks are indeed the most important player on any team, but they're the most important 2 or 3 guys on a roster that is 53 players deep. A good quarterback can't be a star without at least 1 good receiver. For instance, Jay Cutler put up pretty average numbers his first 3 years in Chicago. His only decent target was tight end Greg Olsen, and that was just in the first 2 years. He put up, by far, his worst numbers in his 3rd year when Roy Williams was expected to be the big receiver, but then the next year he was reunited with Brandon Marshall and the numbers started to go up. Marshall was still the only major WR target, and the next year when the Bears brought Martellus Bennett in and Alshon Jeffery broke out, on top of an offensive system that brought Matt Forte back into the mix, and Cutler, on a per game and averages percentage, overall, looked his best in a Bears uniform. Sure, a good quarterback can make a good receiver great, but bad receivers are bad receivers. When the majority of a QB's pass plays are intended for Devin Hester, the quarterback is not going to look good, no matter who they are. Also, it works both ways.
That's not the only reason that line is stupid in football. It's also stupid because half the time the quarterback isn't even on the field. Quarterbacks do not play defense. I know, that's a huge revelation to a lot of people. I'm not kidding, anyone who uses that argument must think that a quarterback plays defense too, because that's the only way I can see them thinking that's a good argument. Still, even back to the offense, if a quarterback doesn't have a good running game to go along with his passing game, defenses can play for the pass every play. There's a number of other external factors that vindicate quarterbacks here, and yes, I think Peyton Manning is the best quarterback ever.
In baseball this argument is beyond stupid. I don't even think I need to get into it, but starting pitchers start once every 5 games, and in one league they don't even hit. Even when they hit, they are never expected by teams to be a major part of the team's offense. Where I'm going with that is that a pitcher can't win a game even if he throws a perfect game when his team doesn't score any runs. For hitters, they get maybe 4 or 5 at bats a game, depending on how the rest of their offense is doing. I'm pretty sure I don't need to explain this one too much. Same goes with hockey. Gretzky had Messier and a very strong supporting cast in Edmonton, that's the closest any hockey player has come to winning championships on their own, and he clearly didn't do it all there. Also, Gretzky is on a complete different galaxy than any other player who has ever played. It's no knock on ANY player who doesn't win a ring on their own if not even Gretzky did it.
Team X Can't Win a Superbowl with _______ __________ As Their Quarterback!
This one will be easier to explain (not that the last one was hard). To put it very simply, the Baltimore Ravens won a Superbowl with Trent Dilfer....TRENT FREAKING DILFER as their quarterback. The Bears came one win away from being champions with Rex Grossman, REX FREAKING GROSSMAN as their quarterback. Anyone who needs any more is either stupid or stubborn.
"We" Won
Too many fans use the word "we" when talking about their team. I understand how it's possible to slip, and I really don't say anything, but when it comes to the next level and fans brag about actually being better than other fans because "their" team won a championship, I will then open my mouth and call them out. Fans don't play the games. Every team's fans can make a lot of crowd noise, and the teams that usually make the most crowd noise also *gasp* get crowd noise piped in from the stadium crew, it's not an uncommon practice in leagues like the NFL. I guarantee it's done in Seattle, I know for sure it's done in Detroit, and I wouldn't be surprised if any other team does it. This doesn't go just for the NFL though, St. Louis Cardinals fans are some of the worst offenders here. They never seem to remember that they aren't the ones making the team decisions. Any fan who thinks they have any bragging rights over another fanbase based on the team of the success the team they roots for has is an idiot. You do nothing more than occasionally buy a ticket to see the team play. Your involvement with the team you root for can be completely taken out and nothing would change for that team. Harsh, but it's the brutal truth for those fans. Quit giving yourself so much credit, quit getting into pissing contests with other fans over thing that neither of you control, and just sit back and enjoy the game for what it is, which, if you ask me, in any of the 4 major team sports in America, is a beautiful thing.
Superstition
I'm not getting into this to ruin anyone's fun. Superstition can be fun. However, it goes too far way too often. If your superstitions get in the way of anyone else in any way, they're going too far. Sure, sitting in the same spot for every game is one thing. Of course, if there's someone who needs that spot for whatever reason and you don't give it up, you've gone too far. The bottom line is that superstitions should be nothing more than a playful side game. Like I said above, nothing you do is going to make a difference in the game, especially when you're watching from your couch. I can even recall a not too old video of a female Green Bay Packers fan yelling at her friend because her friend didn't wear the "lucky" color to the game, and she then goes on to blame her friend for the Packers losing that game. That is a case of a stupid fan being stupid with their superstitions. The color that her friend wore made NO difference in what happened in that game. I could go on for hours about how stupid this is, but the bottom line is that unless you're using superstitions as a fun and harmless side game, you're being stupid.
Team curses go along with this. Curses do not exist. When a team goes on a championship drought you can almost always look at the history of that team throughout that drought and see either just horrible management in the front office, or a team that has come close many times, but just had either unfortunate events happen to them, or just couldn't get over the hump. One thing I will point out is that, going with the most famous current "curse", the NFL, NBA, or NHL have not been around as long as the World Series era in baseball. If they had, I'm sure you would have other teams that have gone close to 100 years in their respective sports without winning a championship. Even with the Cubs, let's remember that they went to the World Series 7 times between 1909 and 1945. After that is when the people running the team completely lost their heads. Either way, it wasn't a curse, and as time goes on this will become more and more obvious as other teams in the MLB and other leagues show even more futility over 100+ year stretches.
Because of Past Management This Team Will Continue to See the Same Bad Fortune
This goes along with the last paragraph above. I'm going to use the Cubs as the prime example due to the critics of what the Cubs are currently doing. Now, to be fair, there actually are some fans who have admitted to me that they'd be fine dealing with mediocre seasons to slightly better for all eternity than deal with 1 or 2 more terrible seasons before starting to see the Cubs get some chances to do something more special. Part of that is because there really is no guarantee that any of the big Cubs prospects will actually do anything and that the Cubs will truly have a good chance at winning anything over the next decade. However, there are a lot of fans out there who use things that happened with the last front office to try to make a point as to how things will wind up going terribly for the Cubs this time around.
The problem with this argument is that since the last Cubs run there has been almost a 100% turnaround in the organization, from the players to the coaches to the scouts to the guys at the top. New owner, new GM, new Team President, new Director of Scouting, new minor league coordinators everywhere, new minor league coaches, new major league coaches. Not only are there new people, there are MORE people there to scout and develop players than there have ever been before, and not just by a little, by a lot. Even the major league roster has very few, if any guys still around from just a few years ago. In fact, from the 2010 roster, the only players still on the team are Starlin Castro and Jeff Samardzija. Crane Kenney is the only major person left in the front office, and his job has nothing to do with the players put on the field, he just finds ways to get money into the club, which he has done a great job at throughout his time with the Cubs.
The point I'm making is that there is such a huge difference in the Cubs system right now that you cannot say "Well, look at Corey Patterson/Felix Pie" when talking about the prospects as reasons why all four of the current big 4 will fail. Look at actual player flaws instead. Go after Baez or Bryant's strikeout totals (and downplay their power), something else, but saying that because guys who failed in a system without as much to develop them failed, these guys will fail is just plain stupid. It's fine if you don't think they'll do well, but at the same time, use good reasons, not terrible reasons like the ones mentioned above. They make no sense. On top of that, top prospects fail for every team. The Cardinals, Pirates, Royals, White Sox, Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers, Giants, Mariners, Rangers, Astros, Marlins, Nationals, Rays, and many other teams have had top prospects that didn't pan out over just the last 10-15 years. On top of that, the Cubs haven't traded away a prospect, only to see them flourish in a very long time. Hamilton is a fair point, but he was drafted in the Rule 5 draft for the Reds, the Cubs, along with almost every other team in the league, had no plans to try to make anything out of him. Dontrelle Willis had a few strong years, but as a whole wound out flaming out very quickly. So trying to use that against, really either of the last two front offices, is another very stupid argument. That's fine if you didn't know that, you're not stupid for not knowing that, but actually saying it as an argument when you're flat out wrong is stupid. If you're going to make an argument, make sure you know that your argument is right, don't just repeat points you heard some other idiot make.
Moving on, most of these fans won't realize that the Cubs are also going deep with the prospects and bringing players in using waves of players. The first wave will be coming over the next year to 3 years. About a year or two after that another wave will be coming with a lot of the international signings from this past year. Of course we all know that those guys could wind up being nothing, but they're still giving themselves more and more chances to get those guys who can wind up being great players. They're taking flyers on those interesting prospects that other teams give up on so that if there is another David Ortiz or anyone like that out there, they have the best chance of being the team that gets that guy. As far as the flyer guys go, I'll be entirely honest and say that almost none of those guys will wind up being anything better than a decent bench player. However, those signings are dirt cheap and worth going for. Just like with the Cubs international signing class. Sure, they worked themselves out of this coming year's international class, but at the same time they liked the 2013 class better, so they went with those guys. There's a massive amount of potential in the guys they got, and of course it may wind up that none of them play above Kane County. However, there's just as good of a chance that at least one of them winds up being, at very least, a good starter level player. Even if that guy is stuck behind a number of other guys, there's still always trade value for players at other positions. The truth here is that not only did Epstein and Hoyer put together a strong current farm system, they've built depth into that system that means that if one of the prospects fails, there will be another guy behind him to take his spot. Past Cubs prospects haven't had that luxury, which is a major reason why their failures have been so magnified. Also, the Cubs have those waves I mentioned earlier. They'll continue to bring up quality prospects who can be traded for proven players of value or who can step in if a good player suddenly takes a bad fall or has a serious career threatening injury. That's one of the biggest things that these fans are missing, this isn't just a couple of prospects like in past years, this is a deep system with a lot of insurance built in.
That has been the problem with the Cubs since the 40's. Occasionally they did get some good prospects put together on one team. The 60's saw the fruition of this with Williams, Jenkins, Banks, Santo, Kessinger, Hundley, Hands, and Holdzman. To be honest, it's actually pretty surprising that this team never won a World Series. The ages didn't line up the best, but it was still a strong enough group of guys that they should have won at least one or two, that is a case of a team just not getting over that hump. However, from the 60's on the front office largely ignored the farm system. Sandberg and Dawson were players developed by other teams who were traded for. The same goes with Sutcliffe. Dunston was a solid player, but really never came close to living up to his potential. Maddux and Grace wound up being very good to amazing (Maddux), but then, of course the Larry Himes let him go when Maddux was being more than reasonable with what he wanted. Grace had a very good career with the Cubs, but even he didn't live up to the power potential they thought they had in him. Also, in both of those instances, the Cubs brought some prospects up, but had nothing behind it, there was no depth, no guys to come in if any of the prospects didn't live up to the expectations. Most of the fans who look at past regimes to predict failure for the current regime don't realize that. On top of that, there has never been a Cubs regime to put the team through a complete rebuild. Sure, some have said they'd do something of the sort (none of them have said they would do a complete rebuild though), but none of them have actually engaged in one. None of the other strategies worked for the Cubs in the past, so why not try something that hasn't been tried yet? As much as fans will hate to hear it, we're still in the early stages of the rebuild, so any fans who have tried to say that it's clearly failed so far don't even understand what a complete rebuild is, especially in baseball where you often have to wait 3-4 years for the guys to even make it onto the big league roster. I know it's no fun, but Cubs fans have to realize that this rebuild is happening no matter what, and abandoning it right now would be the worst possible thing the franchise could do.
Now, this isn't a problem only associated with the Cubs, it goes for any team. With the Cubs we still have yet to see how everything shakes out. However, let's go to things that fans have said about other teams. For instance, when the Clippers got Chris Paul you heard Lakers fans saying that the Clippers will still be worse, because the Clippers are the Clippers and will never have more than one better year than the Lakers at a time. Well, the Clippers are 10 games ahead of the Lakers right now this season, and last season they finished 11 games ahead of the Lakers. Now, it's true that the prophecy of Lakers fans hasn't been debunked yet, but barring a miracle, it's going to happen again. The year before that the Lakers finished a mighty 1 game ahead of the Clippers, in Paul's first season with the Clippers. Saying one team is one team and another team is another team and because of that, one team is better than the other and always will be is another stupid argument. You can say that as long as a team has a certain owner or GM they'll be worse, because some executives are just terrible, but it's not because of the name on the team's uniform, and saying otherwise is undeniably stupid.
I Don't Know As Much As You, so I'll Just Go Into Logical Fallacies or Downplay The Things You Know
I'll go back to the Cubs for this one. Many of the proponents of the Cubs rebuilding plan have had to deal with people who really don't understand what's going on with the Cubs. When those people see someone complaining about the rebuild they often will try to explain what's going on with it (some nicer than others). Sometimes the person will listen and try to understand. However, we live in a society where people want everything to be as simple as possible, and when things aren't that way you see them start to throw a temper tantrum. Those people just usually aren't a smart as those who are able to understand everything, which is why they usually get so upset. They don't know how to express themselves when they get frustrated with the amount of information coming their way, and instead of humoring and then looking at it on their own to understand it, their pride jumps ahead of their brain and they get angry and not only insult the person trying to explain things to them, but make themselves look either stupid or crazy in the process. This goes beyond just the Cubs rebuild, as everything does. For instance, the NBA and salary cap rules. Since this is a Chicago sports blog, I'll go to fans who were calling Jerry Reinsdorf cheap during the offseason. What they didn't understand is that not only were the Bulls over the cap, but the Bulls could not, by league rule, spend more than what their exceptions were on free agents. Even if Reinsdorf was willing to spend $2 for every $1 on salary, he wasn't allowed to sign any free agents worth more than the exceptions the Bulls had, which were not large. Also, because of the trade rules along with the cap rules, it's much more difficult to get creative. When fans would use things that happened in the MLB or NFL to try to explain how the Bulls could have gotten creative. This is one of those things that makes a fan who actually understands how the money side works shake their head. When you try to explain things to them, they then get mad and try to tell you that you don't know what you're talking about.
Gratuitous Use of Logical Fallacies
Here's some logical fallacies that I see all the time and an explanation of what they are:
Ad Hominem - This is where someone who is arguing with you, instead of arguing the subject at hand, goes on to take shots at you instead. For instance, in 2002 I picked the Milwaukee Bucks to win the NBA championship after they had a very strong 2001 season. Now, let's say I predicted the Spurs to win it in 2007 (the fact that they did means nothing, and I don't think I picked them that year anyway), and someone was arguing with me. I continue to make points as to why I think they are the best, and the person who I'm arguing with then goes, "Well, you are the person who picked the Bucks to win it all in 2002." This deflects from the actual subject at hand and tries to deflect the focus from the subject to the person they're debating. It's a logical fallacy because it goes away from the actual subject of the argument. I see this the most often when someone who makes a lot of spelling errors makes a good point and everyone pushes it to the side because of the spelling errors. I do think it's important to know how to spell, but on the other side, you simply cannot deflect a good point, rather you like what's behind the point or not, just because the person doesn't spell right. Like I just said, it's important to spell correctly (largely to avoid people like this), but at the same time, a good point is a good point.
Appeal to Authority - The opposite of Ad Hominem. This is when you take something as being correct just because someone who has "been there" or who is respected in that field has said so. A great example goes back to when Dusty Baker was the Cubs manager. There was a whole issue with the Cardinals claiming that Sammy Sosa was stealing signs. Cardinals pitcher Matt Morris then threatened to throw at Sosa's head if he caught Sosa "trying to steal signs again." When asked about this, Dusty Baker said that throwing at a player's head has no place in the game. Tony LaRussa blasted this comment, saying that throwing at a player's head absolutely is part of the game (funny that someone who is so much of an animal rights advocate cares so little about the well being of humans, and I say this as an animal lover myself). As you can probably guess from inside the parentheses, I don't think that throwing at a player's head has any place in baseball. It takes things in a game and makes it personal. Even when throwing at a player (which I think can be okay if done right) I think that a pitcher needs to aim for the ribs and keep it around 80-85 instead of a 95 mph fastball. Prince Fielder took one a couple years ago in spring training as revenge for a ridiculous celebration that I feel was done perfectly all around. Anyway, Cardinals fans immediately took LaRussa's side, ignoring the actual points made against it and saying that since LaRussa, a 1x (at the time) World Series winning manager who had been to 3 or 4 World Series at that point said it, it must be true. This is a logical fallacy for the same reason that Ad Hominem is. If you have a grungy looking person making great points and a guy in a suit making terrible points, people who follow this fallacy may still say the guy in the suit is right just because he's more presentable. Now, like with Ad Hominem and the spelling example, if you're going to be in a situation when you will be in any sort of competition, it's important you present yourself inappropriately to avoid this, but good points are good points.
Hyperbole - Now that I think about it, this is probably the most commonly used logical fallacy I see used in sports arguments. This is pretty much just exaggerating to make a point. For instance, let's say that in the summer of 2009 I say that Derrick Rose had an encouraging rookie season. Another fan who is upset about how he just won the rookie of the year award wants to disagree with me, so they'll say, "Sure, it would have been encouraging if he didn't turn the ball over 10 times a game." Now, we all know that Rose didn't turn the ball over 10 times a game during his rookie season. The fan who is the naysayer is committing blatant hyperbole. Any time someone does anything even close to that, it's hyperbole, and it doesn't need to be with tangible things either. Let's say a fan says that Jay Cutler is always moping around on the sidelines, that's still hyperbole. Anyone who watched more than 5 minutes of any Bears this past season almost surely saw Cutler talking with coaches or joking with a teammate at some point when cameras would go to him, probably trying to get their bounty money from ESPN for catching him doing something even slightly unlikable so that they could blow it up. Anyway, saying he's always moping around on the sidelines implies that every second he's on the sidelines he is just off on his own looking depressed when, in fact, he's not. In actuality it implies that he, rather there's a game going on or not, is actually always there, but I'll cut someone who says that a little bit of undeserved slack.
Appeal to Probability - I should say that I'm not 100% immune to everything in this article. This is the one that I'm most guilty of. This is pretty much saying that if something has a good percentage of happening, you can conclude that it will happen. A great instance of this being wrong was during the great Bulls/Celtics series of 2009. The Bulls were working on a comeback, but had to foul to get a chance to get the ball back. The person they fouled, unfortunately, was Ray Allen, a guy who regularly shoots around 90% from the free throw line. Myself and everyone else had appealed to probability and assumed that Allen was going to sink both. In actuality it was the exact opposite, he missed both of them.
Argument From Fallacy - This means that if someone who is making a point makes a fallacious point while making their argument that the entire argument is fallacious. Even if the person makes only one point that is fallacious, this doesn't mean that the entire argument is fallacious. It could very easily just have the wrong person arguing the point. This is much more common in politricks, but I see it in sports all the time. Now, I'll argue all day that Jordan is the better player than LeBron, but this is just an example. Let's say that there is someone who says that LeBron is the better player because he's already won more MVP's than Jordan. Now, Jordan still has more MVPs in his career than LeBron does so far, but because that fact was not true, it doesn't mean that the argument is wrong (even though it actually is), it would be wrong for other reasons beyond just that. However, if LeBron actually was better than Jordan, that alone also wouldn't mean that the argument was wrong.
You Weren't There Charlie - This goes back to the Vietnam War when war veterans would tell protesters that they were wrong for opposing the war because they were not there. Being there has nothing to do with the ethics behind it, but this fallacy supposes that it does. This is used more in journalism with TV guys who used to be players. They try to shoot down any good point because they've been there and nobody can know as well as them how good a player is if they haven't been there. This is a clear fallacy because it is really just a copout for these guys when someone they like is said to be worse than someone they don't like as much. It's too easy of a copout for them to use, and you don't have to have actually played a sport to know if someone is good or terrible. You just need to know how to tell if a player is good or bad.
Nirvana Fallacy - This is pretty much when a conclusion is rejected because it's not the perfect conclusion. I'm going to throw in because it's not what the person wants to hear. For instance, let's say that when Derrick Rose tore his ACL there was a fan that was really upset about it, and they wouldn't accept that it happened because they didn't want to believe it. There are other more reasonable examples I could use, but they would create a bit of a fuss. Okay...I'll bite. For the sake of this example, let's say that Global Warming is absolutely true. I'm not saying that I believe one way or the other on this, this is just for the sake of example. This would mean that the people who are denying it are doing so because it means that they are going to have to make changes that are inconvenient to them. Their denial would be based on this fallacy since they would be denying it completely based on it not being the perfect conclusion for them.
Forest Fallacy - This fallacy goes under a number of names, so I'll just go with the most vague one for now. This kind of goes along with the You Weren't There Charlie fallacy, but is different. The point of this one is that when you're in a forest, you don't see all of the trees. You see the tree right in front of you, the trees in your peripherals, but eventually the rest of the trees get blocked out. From the middle of the forest you can't see the whole forest. This is one that I rarely see used in sports arguments, but do see on occasion. It's used by the same people that use the Charlie fallacy. It's most often used when a player tries to downplay an opponent.
General Leaps In Logic - Not as much of a single fallacy, but pretty much when people lead from one thing to another while leaving out something important in between. For instance, if someone says that since Derrick Rose has just gone through 2 big injuries that he will face injuries throughout the rest of his career, while they might not wind up being wrong, the point they're making is fallacious because it leaves out if the injuries he's suffered are reoccurring ones. It leaves out past examples of players who have had the same injuries. In general, there's just a big void left in the middle. Why do those two injuries mean that in the future he'll be going through more of the same? It's going from A to C while leaving out the B. These mistakes are made to almost as obscene of an amount as hyperbole is. It doesn't mean the point is wrong (not going to make an argument from fallacy), but it's not a legitimate point because of the lack of logic.
Pathetic Fallacy - Ball don't lie! Rasheed Wallace used to say that all the time, but it is a blatant use of this fallacy. This is when inanimate objects are given characteristics of animate objects. The ball doesn't say anything, it's a ball. It has no free will, what it does is what the shooter tells it to do with their shooting motion. That is what this appropriately named fallacy is all about, giving animate object characteristics to inanimate objects.
Hasty Generalization - This is exactly what it sounds like. This is when people draw conclusions without having all of the facts. I don't even know where to start with examples for this. However, I'll just say that someone says that Jay Cutler was inaccurate during this past season. The conclusion was obviously drawn without knowing that he had a 63% completion percentage this past season. That's less of a generalization though and more of just not knowing the facts. Maybe, if Derrick Rose plays 82 games next season and the year after that, then a fan complains about all of the games he misses, it would be a hasty generalization based on seasons a few years ago.
I am going to end this blog post at this point. This is, by no means, the end of my ranting on sports fans, but I realized that this is something that is going to take multiple posts. However, as cynical as I may be, it looks like I've underestimated how bad some people can be.
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