GatewayRedbirds.com

I live in about an hour from downtown Chicago in rural Kankakee county. If there's two things people around here love more than anything else it's the Cubs and Trump. Plenty of Matheny-level bible thumpers, too. The hard-on for Ben Zobrist is ridiculous.

There is a glorious anti-Cubs backlash coming. I can't wait.

There's a sizable chunk of Cardinal fans from the heart of Trumpland. I know em, they are relatives and peeps from my old hometown. And they sit on facebook all day, especially since last election has them feeling they control the universe. Hey maybe they do. I'll admit, I'm not a fan of some of my fellow Cardinal fans and Passan's article -no [expletive] he's right about the ugliness.

But major overreach and gives too much credence to internet crazies as indicative of STL in general. I looked up a few of the peeps saying negative things - old lady from Taylorville IL, some dude from Oklahoma, Crestline California, Fairview Heights -well Ok. Doesn't Passan realize they let people outside of STL be Cardinal fans and comment on internet threads.

Passan is a hack. The fact that he even wrote about this proves that. Where's all the crap said about Dexter by Cubs fans when he left?

Also, in the current political climate, it's popular to be distasteful. There's tons of ignorance in every fanbase. The Cards get pointed out because of their title "BFIB" crap. But hey, Passan got his name out more and made this more of a story than it should be. He's been passed up by tons of writers over the last couple of years, so this is a win for him.

My main frustration with the Passan article is with the lack of reporting. I genuinely wanted to know about ways that Fowler and his family were affected by the proposed travel ban, and how he or baseball organizations in general might be responding to it. All Passan provided was lazy reportage--Fowler's social media message, and a quick tour through the Star-Wars bar that is the comment sections of sports-fan sites.

Once baseball starts, this story will have the shelf-life of an unrefrigerated jar of mayonnaise.

At the same time, like it or not, the broader world's image of St. Louis is tied to Ferguson. There's not a lot you can do about it right now.

You mean I'm supposed to refrigerate mayonnaise?

sighyoung wrote:My main frustration with the Passan article is with the lack of reporting. I All Passan provided was lazy reportage--Fowler's social media message, and a quick tour through the Star-Wars bar that is the comment sections of sports-fan sites.

w.

Star Wars bar. That's great.

What do you want to bet Dexter gets a huge cheer on opening day? I think this whole thing is over blown.

Great point, Sigh. It's just lazy reporting (not by Saxon) to generate the clicks blah blah blah. Fowler's statement could've started a dialogue on how this ban could negatively affect families, but instead it turned into the typical "social media firestorm" angle that lazy journalists revert to. Pretty soon the profession will be nothing more than low-level employees typing up Twitter reactions.

lukethedrifter wrote:You mean I'm supposed to refrigerate mayonnaise?

Your ignorance is understandable given that perishability isn't a concern at The Feedlot

sighyoung wrote:My main frustration with the Passan article is with the lack of reporting. I genuinely wanted to know about ways that Fowler and his family were affected by the proposed travel ban, and how he or baseball organizations in general might be responding to it. All Passan provided was lazy reportage--Fowler's social media message, and a quick tour through the Star-Wars bar that is the comment sections of sports-fan sites.

Once baseball starts, this story will have the shelf-life of an unrefrigerated jar of mayonnaise.

At the same time, like it or not, the broader world's image of St. Louis is tied to Ferguson. There's not a lot you can do about it right now.

That image predates Ferguson.

Sports comments sections are the Citizen Kane of comments sections. The people there are kind of nuts but they're generally pretty well informed. Unlike politics comments sections where people are legitimately nuts and can be highly and willfully uninformed. It's when politics bleeds into sports that the same person who might be able to comment well on sports turns into a foamy-mouthed moran bringing Dexter Fowler's race into it and being brilliantly ironic, like...

Ballplayer: here's my idea on politics.
Plumber in the comments sections, commenting on politics: Stop commenting on politics and just do your profession.