Logorrheic Sports: 1/20/08

By Matt Smith

Ever since a 48-21 thrashing at the hands of the Buccaneers in Super Bowl XXXVII following the 2002 regular season, the Oakland Raiders have been a joke of an NFL franchise.
Since then, they have gone 19-61, with their most wins being five in 2004. They have gone through three coaches since losing the Super Bowl and are apparently on their way to firing a fourth.
After going 4-12 this season, the decrepit and obviously insane corpse that used to be Al Davis' living body is going to get rid of Lane Kiffin.
Kiffin, only 32 years old, showed that the Raiders were dramatically improved under him. Not only did the win total double (from two to four) but they were in a lot of games, losing six games by a touchdown or less and losing two more on top of that, where they actually led in the fourth quarter and wound up losing by more than a touchdown.
Because Al Davis owns the Raiders and insists on running them into the ground, it's becoming harder and harder for me to root for them. I have been a Raiders fan for as long as I have liked football, but this is getting hard to handle.Why would he give Norv Turner, a guy who shouldn't have been hired, two years, but get rid of Kiffin after one year?
Also, Davis shows no sign of trying to improve the team. The big signings are guys like Daunte Culpepper and Josh McCown. Davis is clearly blaming his coaches who have been handed horrible roster after horrible roster.
I hate whining about this because I have several friends who are Giants fans and they have watched their team flounder since losing in the 2003 playoffs.
Here's the thing: As stupid as their moves have been, it seems like they think they are making good moves. Obviously they aren't good moves and almost every other human being can see that, but I honestly think that Peter McGowan and Brian Sabean are convinced their moves are going to make them better. Scary.
In the case of the A's, I think fans can see that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, even if it is way in the distance.
With the Raiders, there is no light and there won't be one until Davis dies or the stubborn 172-year old decides to change his ways by staying out of the way and letting the team develop.The former will happen first.
So when I heard this news about Kiffin, I was ready to give up. I was ready to stop being a Raiders fan and I started thinking: Can a big sports fan such as myself, give up on a team they have always rooted for and still be a good sports fan? When is loyalty really just stupidity?
"You can only renounce them if you pick a new team that is equally terrible, but whose owner is alive," my good friend and website cohort Mike Walsh said in jest.
In semi-seriousness though, he said: "I think (the team) has to move, but I might allow for it since your owner has been dead for 10 years, but is still allowed to make decisions."
With the Raiders, it's very different than a team like the Bills or the Packers who are tucked away in some small city where the fans love their team no matter what. The Raiders are a bunch of misfits who always lead the league in penalties. They also don't feel like they belong to the community because they have come and gone before.
Does that make it okay to give up on a team? Is it okay to give up on any team even if it is woven into the very fabric of your life?
"Not only is it okay; it's your duty and an invested, heartfelt fan to do so--to speak candidly, to be that voice," our dedicated reader Mark Spinrad said. "That's true love, man. I mean, c'mon. How else could you be a Dodger fan if you didn't sound off about their heartlessness As naively optimistic as I am about the Niners, I'm very mixed about the Martz hiring. If I was offended by steroids in baseball, I would have to condemn the Giants. It's part of the job description of fanaticism. I'm not saying you should give up on a team permanently (unless they move), but I do think you are entitled to both sound off and take a hiatus should the condemned act(s) merit such a response. A death penalty SMU style."
That brings me to my next point; if you are able to feel like you are ready to give up on a team, was your heart completely with them?
I love the Dodgers like no other team in sports with USC and Tennessee football a distant second (this says more about my love for the Dodgers, not less about my love for my college football teams) and I couldn't ever imagine giving up on them no matter how horrible they were.
But I know I felt this way about the Raiders once, but things have gotten so ridiculous that I don't know if I can admit that I am a fan anymore.
"It's not so much about an edict of renouncement as it is about your own personal energy," website partner and trusted friend Ben Malley said. "If less is going towards the team then you basically have renounced it. This will happen when the owner is insane like Al Davis. I know that if you were an A's fan you would still be a huge fan this season because you want to watch the young kids mature and become better. They are the future of the team you love. Since I know you don't feel that way about the Raiders you have already renounced them. I know you are a Lakers and Raiders fan but I've never seen you really care about them the way you do the Dodgers and to a lesser extent USC and Tennessee. Maybe it's just because its the NFL and NBA."
The fact that the NBA has turned me off or that I feel the NFL is better for fantasy football does play into my thought process and I think Ben has a point. My heart hasn't appeared to have been into the Raiders for a while now, and maybe I can never go back. I could always go back to being a fan in the future if I do renounce them, but never in the same capacity. Spinrad, Walsh and Malley make fine points and I agree that once you have mentally checked out, you do lose a bit of your fanhood. Once you actually think to yourself that maybe you no longer want to root for this team, you hit a point of no return. You may never live or die with that team again.
"Sure it's okay to renounce a favorite team. Even better when you know they aren't going anywhere under a certain owner/GM/coach," Malley said. "Because when you are a sports fan like us, once you renounce them in your heart, you can never go back to them the same way again. They could be making an incredible playoff run, and maybe you think you are back as a fan, but deep down it's not the same, and you know it."
I guess I better think long and hard about how I really feel about them, both to myself and to people I know, because I will sure miss the feeling of loving a team to death when they are good.

Here are some other thoughts from dedicated (ya right) readers:

Larry Salomon: "Only a real fan can renounce his team. Then, after no more than onecalendar year, and like a jilted lover whose heart has mended, he canclaim them as his own again. The better question is can a fan renounce his favorite team and thenmove on to another? Not if he was truly a real fan, or only in the event that he moves to another city, waits the requisite five years,and then claims another team as his own. He may continue to follow hisold flame, even root for them, but it's not the same."

I won't put the rest of what he said, but it was fucking hilarious....

Ali Thanawalla: "I think it's okay to renounce your favorite sports team, but with a few conditions.
First, you can not, under any circumstances, return to rooting for that team. You can't grow up rooting for the Knicks, then renounce them because of Isiah Thomas, and then come back in five years when they start winning again. Once you give them up, they are as good as gone.
Second, you have to fully committ to the new team of interest. You must become part of their 'Nation.'
With that said, I will give my personal experience. And I will state for the record that if I hadn't renounced this team 10 years ago, I would have surely done so in the last four years.
Growing up in the Bay Area in the late 80's and early 90's, I was an Oakland A's fan. When you're a kid, you're influenced by your parents. My dad was (and still is) a huge A's fan, and he always liked Mark McGwire. So naturally, Big Mac became my favorite player. In 1996 and the beginning of 1997, there were grumblings that the A's were going to trade him. At the time, I didn't understand the business of the game. All I knew was that the A's were going to trade my favorite player. When they finally traded him to St. Louis, I was devasted. The fact that he gave St. Louis the thrill of watching the Great Home Run Chase of 98 and not the fans he grew up with in Oakland really hurt me. Not that that was his fault.
After the A's traded McGwire, I silently renounced my loyalty to the A's. I couldn't root for a team that traded my favorite player. Now, admittedly, I didn't have a backup team to fall back on. I guess you could say I was a free agent for about one year.
During the 1998 season, I spent a lot of my time with my best friend at the time, and he too was having a team loyalty crisis. He grew up in a Giants household, but at times, I knew him to be a fan of the Cubs, Mets and Yankees. It was his adorance of the Yankees that caught my eye. At the time, I wasn't aware of the hatred for the Bronx Bombers, but watching them on TV was awesome. So I stuck with the Yankees, and my best friend fell back to the Giants. But it was too late. I decided to stick with the Yankees.
Watching guys like Jeter and Tino and Bernie, they effectively signed me a lifetime contract.
But, even if I hadn't renounced the A's after the Big Mac trade, chances are I would have kicked them to the curb in the last few years. I don't know how I'd be able to root for a team that continues to ship out, or elect not to re-sign, its best players, year after year. Rather than spend money they surely have, they trade players at the height of their popularity, or let players leave via free agency at the peak of their careers. Hudson and Mulder were traded at the height of the Big Three. Giambi and Tejada were allowed to walk away after winning MVP's. I don't know how A's fans continue to put up with the current management. This offseason, they traded away their two most popular players, Dan Haren and Nick Swisher. Were either close to free agency? No. Did either have a big contract? No. They were traded so that the A's could rebuild. Hello? Mr. Beane? Rebuild with Haren and Swisher!
So do I think a fan can renounce their team? Of course. But you better be damn sure about it. It needs to be a well thought-out decision. So if you're going to change loyalties, choose wisely. There is no bandwagon-jumping."

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