The Second Coming

Hey Spinning Tomato back at it, is it really true? I have a follower? I was beginning to think this thing didn't work and it was all one big hoax, thanks for the kind words Abrash, you get to be in this next post and not only that, but I'm going to dedicate it to the World Cup (and your new baby,) just because you asked about it. Truth be told, I'm not going to lie, I don't have the smallest interest in soccer (or football, depending on who you ask)or in the World Cup for that matter, probably because I live and grew up in the U.S., where soccer has always been more of a Saturday morning kids game, rather than a professional major league sport to the likes of the big four (baseball, basketball, football and hockey.) I of course understand the excitement of it, just like any other sport and am well aware of what goes on in just about every other country in the world when it comes to this game, but when you don't grow up rooting for a team that plays the sport, chances are you will never have much of an interest in it. This has touched on another interesting point about my personal "fandom." I live in Chicago, born here, raised here. Growing up it was always about the Bulls obviously, with Jordan here and all the championships etc. The Cubs for me was like a religion, are you in or out, or are you a Whitesox fan?, so you had to pick a side, I picked the Cubs, silly me. The Bears were a popular team, obviously winning the Super Bowl in '86, so that was a shoe-in. The only tricky one was the Blackhawks, they went to the Stanley Cup in '92, but lost, shortly after that, the team was broken up and they got really bad for a really long time, in fact they hit the ultimate low-point when ESPN magazine named them the worst franchise in all of sports about six years back. They went like fifteen years without even making a peep, sitting in the NHL cellar, seemingly rotting away as their fanbase got smaller by the season. They are now the favorites to win the Stanley Cup and their fanbase is finally alive and quite well again, but I'm having issues caring about it. For the majority of my childhood they were non relevant and an embarrassment to follow, I can't just turn it on, now that they are finally good again and anyone who says they can, is lying. You can only be a true die-hard fan if you grew up rooting for that team, if for whatever reason you didn't and you want to now, it's going to be a bit artificial and deep down inside you will not get the same enjoyment you'd get from one of your "real" teams. There's nothing wrong with cheering for them, but don't fool yourself, you're only jumping up and down and hugging the guy next to you, because everyone else is, and chances are they are just like you. So to be perfectly honest about this, when the Hawks hoist that trophy in about a week or so, only half the arena will be truly feeling the joy that only a die-hard can feel, if even that, now that's embarrassing.