White Sox Fans: Take A Knee

This picture has nothing to do with anything. I just thought it was dumb.

I like to think I have a pretty good idea of what still counts as "stupid" in this country. It seems like year after year, the bar is lowered further and further, to the point where it's almost now just sitting on the ground. Getting into how the good ol' US of A got to this point is another post entirely.

It takes a whole lot for something to be so idiotic, so incomprehensibly dumb, that it stops me dead in my tracks and causes my brain to hurt trying to make a modicum of sense of what I'm seeing. It's even harder for something to have that effect on me when I see it on Facebook. Because I regard Facebook as mostly a dumping ground for the very first unfiltered thing that pops up in people's brains, my tolerance for seeing things there that make me want to light myself on fire is pretty high.

But holy shit, I cannot keep what I saw this morning to myself.

As someone that went to high school and college in Illinois, I have a lot of friends on Facebook that are Cubs fans and a lot of friends that are White Sox fans. When both teams clash, I see a lot of updates on Facebook (from both sides) that make me shake my head and move on. But what I woke up to this morning...I'll just jump into sharing it with you. All names have been blocked out to protect the innocent as well as the idiotic.

In case you can't read what the caption says, it's "(Name Withheld) tell this dummy they have the worst record in baseball and sit down lol". This in and of itself is perfectly reasonable. The Cubs do have the worst record in baseball, and in a rivalry like this, it's something that's bound to come up.

As we look at some of the comments that continue under the picture, things start to spiral out of control. Here's the first comment posted:

Well then. If you've ever seen bad improv before, you know that when someone can't think of anything remotely clever to say, they usually resort to excessive swearing or vulgar references, hoping they can get a cheap laugh. The internet equivalent of this is calling someone gay. The biggest difference is that for the improv performer, they're on the spot and have to say something. No one was clamoring for this person's two cents to be thrown in. There is no excuse. But at least we get the mandatory homophobic comment out of the way first. It frees up the rest of the conversation to go in any direction. Of course, it goes in a very predictable one.

There's a very real chance that the guy pictured at the top was being a drunk asshole and ruining the experience for everyone around him, If that's the case, he deserved to get booted out. But to the best of my knowledge, I don't think our homophobic friend was actually at the game. And if that's the case, they're saying the pictured gentleman deserved to be kicked out of his seat just because he was a Cubs fan that had the audacity to cheer for his favorite team in a game that just so happened to take place in the city that team also plays in.

Got it. So what you're saying is you're losing to the Cubs on purpose because you feel sorry for us? Now I know that this person probably doesn't actually think the Sox are losing to the Cubs out of pity. But even saying it makes your team look stupid. Either you look bad for tanking a game or you look bad for getting pasted by the worst team in baseball. You look bad in both cases.

Last night was the only Cubs win of the entire season??? Seriously??? I thought that a team that had an 0-66 record coming into last night would have made more news than it did. I didn't hear about this anywhere else.

The funny thing is that the simple addition of 3 words would have made this a valid statement. "This may be your only win all season against the Sox" would have been infinitely better. It's funny that taking out those 3 words would turn a valid point into one that makes zero sense.

I think my favorite part is that even when making a ridiculous statement, this person can't stick to their guns. If you're going to talk impossible smack, you say "THIS WILL BE YOUR ONLY WIN OF THE SEASON", not "this may be your only win this season". Have some conviction!

Also, talking about how terrible the Cubs are doesn't really look good for you. The "worst team in baseball" just hung a dozen on you last night. And you might want to call Kenny Williams about these "charity wins" you're giving to teams you feel bad for. You're .5 games up in your division and way back in the Wild Card. You can't afford to give many games away. I don't think Detroit will return the favor and tank against the worst teams they play.

What a fantastic bow to tie on the entire conversation.

First off, you wish your team sucked at trading? Even if we had the ship in Prometheus, I don't think we could discover a world where that makes sense, even as a joke.

The other thing that actually made me excited was that I'm connected through a mutual friend to someone that works in a MLB front office! How awesome is that? After all, the only way this person could ever know that the Cubs are currently "sucking" at trading Dempster and Garza would be if they were actually in on those trade calls between Jed Hoyer and other GMs across the league, right?

/sarcasm

Seriously, this is about the dumbest statement out of all the ones you've seen here. The Cubs have two prime trade chips in Dempster and Garza. Since they're still on the team, that means the Cubs have to be terrible at trading them, right? It's not because we're waiting for the best deal to come along, is it? It's not that we can get more for them closer to the deadline, using potential injuries and pitting other teams against each other to drive up the price, is it? This guy seems like the type of person that sends you incredibly lopsided trade offers in fantasy baseball, and gets pissed at you when you don't accept them.

I know that the people above aren't representatives of all White Sox fans. Hell, the person who posted that picture in the first place is a Sox fan, and one of the more knowledgeable baseball fans I've ever met. But the other commenters need to realize that they're making all White Sox fans look like idiots.