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October 4, 2006
natural selection
CHICAGO - When you leave a game in Seattle or New York, you have 1) your car within a half-mile or 2) buses immediately outside the stadium, waiting to shuttle you directly to your car or train station. In my travels to 37 different stadiums, those were the best transit experiences.
The worst is Soldier Field in Chicago. Nothing else comes close. Forget parking; there are only a few thousand spaces. You must take some form of mass transit. Cabs, trains and buses may come no closer than two miles to the stadium, so as a reward for walking two miles to the game, after the game, you and 65,000 of your closest friends trek two miles, en masse, to the same corner, where you compete for a ride. It's as fun as it sounds, especially in a thunderstorm.
So to summarize: and fuck you as well, Chicago.
The new Soldier Field is an abomination. Who thought combining these architectural styles was a good idea?
You know you ruined it when your National Historical Landmark status is being taken away.
I'd previously observed that Raiders fans in Oakland bore no resemblance to Raiders fans I'd previously met in other cities. Whereas the Raiders fans I'd met in Ohio and Washington were uniformly boisterous cretins spoiling for fights, the fans in Oakland were all kind to me. Sweet, even. I'm seeing a similar effect with Seahawks fans, but from the opposite angle. I have no problem with the fans who attend games in Seattle; however, the fans who make road stops are singularly boorish. In Chicago as in Detroit, traveling Hawks fans made a point of obnoxiously antagonizing other fans.
Some of that always goes on, of course, but it's not so uniformly hostile. When I went to Michigan last year, for instance, I wore my Ohio State colors proudly. But I also befriended the Wolverines fans around me, shaking their hands and wishing for a good game. I cheered. They cheered. I razzed. They razzed. Any conflict between us amounted to good-natured ribbing amongst sports relatives, and frankly, it made the game more enjoyable. When the good guys won, they grudgingly congratulated me.
I'm thinking that these Hawks fans, in their pristine new jerseys and hats, are new to the playground and have no idea what the rules are. They want acknowledgement, and they'll go to any length to get it. They scream in people's ears. When the other fans scream back, the Hawks fans instantly escalate into profanity and even shoving. It's a scene from middle school. When before the game, you inject yourself into a group of singing Bears fans—minding their own business and ignoring you, which is of course an insult to your sensibilities—and you start pointing to your jersey and screaming "CHICAGO FUCKING SUCKS," you should expect to get your ass handed to you. Which is what happened, much as in Detroit. I suppose that eventually, these morons will be weeded out and the problem will take care of itself. May it happen soon and before they procreate.
posted by john at 11:38 AM • permalink