Fans Switch Favorites As Crawford, Others Move On

By Joey Johnston - The Tampa Tribune, March 10, 2011

Mary Clark, passionate follower of the Boston Red Sox, threw a bachelorette party for her friend last week. Where did they go? Where else? They left New England and headed to spring training.

Clark wore her new Carl Crawford jersey. "He used to kill us," Clark said. "He stole six bases on us … in one game ! I hated his guts. I wanted him dead." And now? "Well, now I'm in love with him."

Today at Charlotte Sports Park, weather permitting, the Tampa Bay Rays (Crawford's old team) meet the Red Sox (Crawford's new team) for the first time in 2011. By now, Crawford's seven-year, $142 million free-agent contract with Boston is old news. By now, many Tampa Bay supporters don't care to rehash his departure from the franchise.

But there could be a memorable show in the stands. Behold the modern fans of professional sports. They give their hearts grudgingly. Even then, affections are on a swivel. Heroes can become villains. "Fans may lock into specific players and continue to root for them, even as they change teams, but the real affinity still lies with the team," said Lee Igel, assistant professor of sports business and management at New York University.

Jerry Seinfeld had it right during a 1995 stand-up routine. We root for laundry. You are standing and cheering and yelling for your clothes to beat the clothes from another city. Fans will be so in love with a player but if he goes to another team, they boo him. This is the same human being in a different shirt. They hate him now. BOOOO! DIFFERENT SHIRT!

"Your loyalty has to be to the home team because it can't be to players any more," said Rays season-ticket holder Bill Hepscher of Wesley Chapel. "I'm not angry at Carl. But I'm definitely not going to cheer for him. No way. Nothing personal."

For the players, it's not personal, either. It's business. "The Red Sox and Yankees are the enemy," Rays right fielder Matt Joyce said. "It's tough to see Carl going from playing with us to helping the enemy. But these things happen in baseball." "It was a little disturbing for the first five minutes I heard about it," Rays pitcher David Price said. "But after that, I moved on. It's part of the business." Lifelong loyalty is unrealistic for players.

And for fans. Fantasy sports — where fans can draft a hybrid squad of players from various teams — have never been more popular. "I always hear the criticism, 'Oh, fantasy leagues are ruining baseball because they create fans who aren't loyal to teams,' " ESPN fantasy sports analyst Matthew Berry said. "I think it's great for baseball because more fans care about players and teams that they ordinarily wouldn't care about.

"I don't think there's a right way or a wrong way to follow sports. I might choose to root for the collection of players I've drafted on my fantasy team. In today's sports world, why is that so different than you rooting for the collection of players on the Tampa Bay Rays? Look, that collection of Rays will change next year and the year after that and the year after that and so on."

Maybe it's neither right nor wrong. It's just different. Brian Roundy, a Seattle native, works for The Thomas Collective, a New York public-relations agency. He organized a group of displaced Seattle Seahawks fans to watch the games each Sunday afternoon. "Seemingly, whenever an opposing team scores a touchdown on us, someone in the bar says, 'Hey, at least he's on my fantasy team,' " Roundy said. "That always irks me."

Fan loyalty never will resemble the childhood days of Rays manager Joe Maddon, who grew up rooting for the St. Louis Cardinals in the 1960s. "As a former real fan, I remember knowing there would always be Julian Javier, Tim McCarver, Bill White, Orlando Cepeda, Lou Brock, this unchanging lineup with the Cardinals that you could count on," Maddon said.

"It's different for fans now. I also think there's a whole different mercenary side to fans because of merchandising. I would've never worn anyone else's cap at a St. Louis game. I think kids wear baseball caps now because they think the colors are cool and they have no idea who's even on the team. I guess it's good if it attracts them to baseball in general, but in no way does it create the kind of allegiance we used to have."

There may still be an arms-length allegiance to Crawford. "I have several Crawford shirts, but I don't plan on wearing them to games any more," said Rays fan Mark Harmon of New Port Richey. "Money talks. I understand it. I think I'll root for him as long as he's not playing us."

"Modern fans have come to terms with the fact that nothing is forever," said Adam Rauch, president of One Line Sports Agency, a New York-based sports and entertainment marketing company. "They know that players will come and go, whereas their teams are the fabric that bonds the entire community together."

In 2004, Mary Clark's lifelong dream was realized when her Red Sox won the World Series, rallying from a three-game playoff series deficit against the hated Yankees. She remembers cheering for Johnny Damon, Red Sox catalyst. The next season, Damon was with the Yankees. "Traitor!" Clark said. "He was a Benedict Arnold. Good riddance."

Behold the modern fans of professional sports.