Home of the Brave

You'll never hear an American sports fan admit it, but American sports fandom is fuckin' weak. At virtually any professional sporting event you attend in this country, the fans are just barely more enthusiastic than bleary-eyed parents at their bed-wetting kid's Spring Recital. Weak, to be sure.

Think about it: when's the last time you heard about any significant incidents of fan violence at a professional sporting event in the U.S.? I think you might have to go as far back as two years ago, when a Detroit Pistons fan lobbed a half-filled paper cup of beer at then-Indiana Pacer Ron Artest.

Not that the events of that day scored very high on the civil unrest scale -- our trigger-happy fan missed his target, and, tough guy that he proved to be, sat back and watched as an enraged Artest rushed the stands and attempted to pummel the wrong guy. The key word being "attempted", because for every punch Artest half-landed, he sloppily threw ten. The bottom line is that while it was refreshing to see a glimmer of raw passion emanating from the stands, it'd be a bit of a stretch to call it an out-and-out melee.

Nevertheless, based on the media response, you might've thought all fans present that day had sprouted horns, fangs, and a forked tail; killed their first-borns; flung feces at helpless senior citizens; and raped the cheerleaders. For weeks the talking heads spouted off incessantly, creating the impression that the entire NBA, perhaps all of American sport, was on the brink of a moral implosion. It was virtually apocalyptic. All because some twit launched a half a beer in a paper cup.

Meanwhile, over in Greece a few days ago, fans of two rival Athenian teams chucked slightly more harmful projectiles at each other: homemade gas bombs. One guy was killed. Seven were hospitalized. Before the game. The sport that stoked such fiery passions? Volleyball -- women's volleyball.

And last week, the coach of Pakistan's national team was strangled by a fan after his squad, a perennial world powerhouse, suffered a humiliating loss to lowly Ireland, resulting in an uncharacteristically early elimination from a prestigious international tournament. The sport? Cricket. Mother fuckin' cricket.

At this point, I could give you a laundry list of violent soccer incidents across the globe in the past six months alone, but even within that limited time span they'd be too numerous to mention in this short and humble blog. Suffice it to say that in most countries attending a soccer match is a calculated risk.

Of course, as I mentioned before, no red-blooded American sports fan would ever cop to the true febrile nature of U.S. fandom. The prevailing mentality in this country holds that because we've got football, our claim to toughness is well beyond reproach. But let's examine this ludicrous theory:

Imagine aliens land on Earth to investigate the relative toughness of nations, and will formulate their conclusions by attending sporting events both within the U.S. and across the rest of the world. (Don't question why -- they just will.) They'll observe closely, discuss amongst themselves in their hideous alien language, and ultimately present humanity with a final determination.

In the U.S., they'll go to football games, where they'll watch professional athletes -- who represent a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the general population and are paid millions of dollars every year -- smother each other in full pads for 60 minutes. They'll watch the fans -- who represent the bulk of the general population -- enjoy the game more or less silently, comporting themselves civilly throughout the contest, barring the occasional jeer from beer-sodden hillbillies. The gravest danger any fan is exposed to throughout the day is the precarious journey from the concession stands back to their seats whilst balancing five Ball Park Franks and a mustard-laden pretzel. Perhaps the drive home presents the risk of a DUI.

Meanwhile, in a multitude of countries overseas, the aliens will watch professional athletes engage in the world's predominant -- albeit non-contact -- sport: soccer. Bona fide collisions between players are infrequent. As for the fans, who are literally fenced off from the action on the field to prevent bum-rushes, the aliens will watch them: attempt and often succeed in pelting the athletes with bottles and batteries; pelt each other with all manner of missiles; frequently brawl before, during, and after the game with each other, sometimes using weapons; frequently get attacked and sometimes killed by riot police (and vice versa); frequently destroy property before, during, and after games, not only within the confines of the stadium but throughout the host city as well; etc., ad nauseum.

So what do you think the rubbery-skinned, bug-eyed aliens are going to conclude? That the Americans take the toughness-cake because a negligible percentage of their population, a few hundred helmeted, steroid-infused millionaires, ram into each other for 16 Sundays of the year? I think not.

Clearly, it's a topsy-turvy attitude towards sports toughness that we cultivate in this country. But, then again, we wouldn't be Americans if we weren't collectively delusional -- it's one of our defining cultural traits.

Now, I wonder if I can get the cricket guy to poison Lions GM Matt Millen.