A War Of Words: Sports Fans On The Internet

I'm home sick today, which might have colored my perception of things, but honestly, the world of the comment boards at www.sfgate.com is so weird. And this is just in reference to the comments about the sports articles.

There are a number of insightful comments, valid arguments articulately made, and reasonable discussions. It's just sometimes hard to find them behind the elements of the lunatic fringe. It is strange to see even some opinions that I might agree with couched in extreme terms that make me jump back as if scalded by cooking oil.

There are a few people out there who respond via non sequitur to whatever a particular sports columnist writes, criticizing the author's skills, integrity, personal appearance and eating habits. Strange, and needlessly vicious. A lot of what the readers write is not even based on what is actually in the article to which they are responding; they are finding what they want to find, inventing it if necessary.

Some fans of the Oakland Raiders are a classic example, responding to any criticism of their team with ad hominem attacks. Heaven forbid anyone write anything mildly critical of this dysfunctional, dismal franchise which has produced very little in the way of positive results this year: one win, three losses; a franchise quarterback completing less than half of his passes; star running back injured for 2-4 weeks; a front office which tried to ban former Raider and current TV analyst, Rich Gannon, from a preproduction meeting before a televised game simply because he was a former player who criticized them; and a head coach who may well be prosecuted for assaulting an assistant before the season. Nothing (negative) to see here folks. Shut up.

The us versus them attitude is often a good motivation for a sports franchise, and has actually worked well for the Raiders. It just doesn't work when your team isn't good enough to pull it off with panache and when your owner, a much respected figure, appears to be descending into King Lear-like madness.

Not that sports fans have a monopoly on ridiculous comments. There are a lot of hateful comments from all sorts of perspectives, frustrated people taking advantage of the anonymity of the Internet to scatter vitriol and insults like dandelion seeds. This is one more illustration of why sports are a microcosm of society as a whole.

I'm glad that all these people are paying attention to the news--I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt on this point, that they are paying attention to news beyond the box scores. I just wish they weren't so stupid and used better grammar. It's very depressing. I love sports, but sports do not merit name-calling and anonymous hatred.