Lamentations in the T-Dot Part 4 - by Apollo

Argh, the dreaded 4th post on the same topic...4 being a rather unlucky number in some cultures. I'm not too concerned about it in this instance since I have other things to rant about and therefore the death of this particular subject is not a real loss. All you 2 Wise Men fans out there rejoice at once again being blessed by multiple posts on the same day.

First of all, let me clarify something that wongoz obviously missed horribly. It isn't that I am against nicknames per se, I'm more opposed to shortened nicknames for terms that do not need shortening in the first place. Apollo is a complete name. If I was named Apollo and referred to myself as Ap, Ollie or A-Dot, then there would be a problem. The point being, why would anyone need to come up with an alternative name for something that's easily identifiable and pronounceable...eh, wongoz??? (Insert irony here).

Since he is a proud Torontonian (his term, not mine), wongoz has a lot of emotion on this particular subject, hence the first post on this issue was his. Moreover, as an educated Toronto sports fan, he has suffered through the frustration of the local teams for many years, and sees beyond the wins and losses. He can critique his teams, an admirable quality and one of the reasons I allow him to share this forum with me. I, as an outsider, generally celebrated the victories of certain Toronto teams and was somewhat disappointed by the losses, but never really took it too personally. I never identified with any Toronto team and never claimed any team as my own. I never bragged about any Toronto team's success because I knew that I was not a true Toronto fan. Therefore, I never became personally invested to the obssessive degree of wongoz and other Toronto fans.

Small traces of classic Toronto sports arrogance creep into wongoz' posts from time to time and they are clearly evident to anyone but a Toronto sports fan. He says he "doesn't blame" me for not liking Toronto teams, as if it somehow requires forgiveness that anyone could cheer for any team besides one based in Toronto. It's entirely understandable to him that people across Canada have to listen to the latest Toronto sports highlights. After all, more people live in Toronto than anywhere else so of course their teams are the most important and should take precedence over coverage of any local team. And who cares about the fates of other teams in other cities? We're Toronto dammnit, we're doing just fine over here so why do we care about anyone else? Who cares if other cities don't have the fan support of Toronto? That's their problem, not ours.

Never mind that Toronto sports teams benefit from a unique corporte and media culture that no other Canadian city can duplicate, and that they themselves had absolutely nothing to do with. If Winnipeg and Quebec City enjoyed the same luxury box crowd and sushi eating clientele as Toronto, surely the Jets and Nordiques would not only still be playing, but would surely have won more than Toronto over the last 37 years. If the Expos actually had a media contract that gave them more exposure than a few random games on The Score and over the internet, perhaps they would not be the orphans of baseball that they are today.

What Toronto sports fans continue to miss, to the absolute annoyance of the rest of the world, is that they have very little reason to be so loud and proud. Toronto teams are in a down period right now, marked by poor sports management and a commitment to the profit margin as opposed to delivering a championship to their long suffering fans. And yet, with no evidence whatsoever that any Toronto franchise is headed to a championship anytime soon, Toronto fans still pay their money, follow their teams and demand a winning product and a championship contender. It goes beyond expecting a good effort, it goes beyond wanting to see annual improvement. Toronto is all about winning. Toronto fans are not content to sit back and track the progress of their teams. Toronto fans are living mostly in the glory days of the Leafs and Blue Jays when talk of a championship was realistic and bandwagons rolled along with overcrowded masses. It is entirely frustrating to listen to Toronto fans banter on about what top flight free agent they may get, what trades they might make without any semblance of realism. Why wouldn't [insert to superstar here] want to play in Toronto? Actually, why would anyone want to play here? Even worse, few Toronto fans offer any sympathy whatsoever to the financial plight faced by other franchises, or the greedy owners who move their teams to another city in the middle of the night. And Toronto fans then audaciously wonder why people don't like them so much?

Now there are signs of progress...after all, the entire point of this discussion was that wongoz sees no relief on the horizon for the continued losing of Toronto teams. You would be hard pressed to find a cocky Raptors fans these days, and most Blue Jays fans are staying home and waiting to see exactly what the J.P. Ricciardi era will bring them. What I have tried to convey is that until fans start showing their displeasure at the ticket window, very little will change. Moreover, no one is feeling sorry for Toronto's current state of woe. Every team has their die-hard and insufferable fans. It seems just more fun for the rest of us to make fun of Toronto's die-hards than most. Perhaps it's because we've often been outnumbered, having to deal with the sheer volume of the Leafs Nation or similar Toronto mob. Most likely it's because we're probably just jealous, jealous of the unending devotion that so few other cities can boast. As I have said before, that devotion is admirable. It's just annoying when they try and stuff it down our throats.