Nothing brings 
people together like tragedy and triumph. Nothing can more quickly turn your out group into an in-group than a grand event. So, the chants of “U-S-A!” that broke out after the American triumph during Sunday’s Mets-Phillies game among the rivals mirrored the abundance of I 
NY shirts that appeared nearly ten years ago as the Mets played another rival after September 11th. The event need not be a national moment either. The year that both the Mets and Yankees made the World Series produced a camaraderie in New York City which seemed to surprise those who weren’t around to see it. Mets fans and Yankee fans became baseball fans. And the city that had been a Yankee town for the previous few years embraced its more general baseball identity. A new in-group was formed and anyone who wasn’t a New York baseball fan, or all those people who wrote about how it was going to tear the city apart, became the new out group. At least until the games began…
Grouping Together
Mostly Homers
Watching the playoffs often means watching your favorite team through the eyes of a national audience. While many of us would deny our own analysts as “homers,” we still find a level of familiarity in them that often makes us turn to them in times of sport. As sports fans, we develop an “us” vs. “them” mentality—our team vs. their team, our fans vs. their fans. Without even thinking about it, we have defined our in-group and our out-group. Within our in-group, we have loyalty. We will follow our in-group and accept much of what they do, even if we wouldn’t stand for it from others. A foul is dirty when committed by someone in our out-group but it becomes justified, or not a foul at all, when a member of our in-group is accused. We accept criticism from our fellow fans, analysts and commentators in a way we would not from those in the out-group. Are we truer fans if we appreciate the challenge of listening to our out-group announce our games or, can we still be called fans if we find ourselves muting TNT and ESPN whenever we can?
Topics
What They Say
- Baseball is the only field of endeavor where a man can succeed three times out of ten and be considered a good performer.
Ted Williams
- Baseball is the only field of endeavor where a man can succeed three times out of ten and be considered a good performer.
What You Say
- watch bears vs packers on Tiger Trials
- Rex Ryan on Tiger Trials
- Gene on All the Field is a Stage…
- Gene Mast on About the Girl
- Sociology Sports Girl on About the Girl