Twins first baseman, Justin Morneau, has gotten a lot of sympathy over his concussion recently. In the past week he has received a great deal of tweets and letters from fans worrying over the state of his health. What got fans into this frenzy was a statement that Morneau made referring to his health and his retirement. Recently he has had concussion like systems for a while, and has yet to be cleared to play. Morneau says of his comments "You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that if the stuff continues I probably wouldn't be able to play again. It wasn't anything other than stating the obvious." However, for fans this was anything but stating the obvious.
Morneaua's fans have loved and watched him for years. They think of him as someone who comes home for family dinners, and they talk about him as if they truly know him. Any fan can tell you that when their favorite player retires they don't know what to do with themselves. They feel a connection with this person, even though they have never had a real conversation with this person. This is demonstrated in Coover's novel, The Universal Baseball Association. Henry the main character becomes so intertwined in his players' lives that he doesn't know what to do when one of them dies. Even though his players are imaginary, he feels a deep connection with them. This is no different than Morneau's fans. They consider him to be part of their lives, so if he was to stop playing tomorrow what would his fans do? Although, Henry and Modeau's fans have never truly met their star player, they feel as though their decisions affect their lives. Thus in this since we glamorize baseball and make it more than just a game.
You bring up a great point about the idolizing of fans and the "near-ness" that fans have with the great players they adore. I have overheard in multiple conversations about sports just how attached that fans get. You get the phrases like "Well WE got this guy from this team" or "MY guy is a better hitter than your guy" and I find it comical looking back now and realizing that neither these players or teams are ours, yet we still feel like they are attached at the hip with us. So I feel for Morneau's fans because he has been a big part of the Twins organization and those who worship the Twins feel a loss if he weren't able to come back and even worse retire. I also want to comment on the "ADD" that Americans have in the media. It's funny when I see a major player that established or contributed in a big way to a ball club leaves due to trades or released etc. The fans are so angry that the team they love lost THEIR guy, but that negativity can be diminished so quickly and easily shifted if a new player comes in that takes the place of that star or enough time goes by (sometimes it can be very short or long). For example, when Matt Holliday left the Rockies, people were devastated, me included, because we lost the star. Ask Rockies fans now and see how their attitudes have shifted or they just completely forgot because Troy Tulowitzki took his place as well as Carlos Gonzales etc. Fans are so easily distracted by this thus the ADD syndrome of fandom.
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