I’m not talking about fans of Bill Broonzey, Little Walter, or Muddy Waters; I’m talking about fans of Bob Plager, Chris Pronger, and the perpetually salty and swollen Tony Twist. What stood out to me the most while watching the Rams blindside the Saints on Sunday was not the pressure of Long and Quinn (we’ve actually seen that all year), it wasn’t the great play of A.J. Feely (that didn’t happen), and it wasn’t the dominant play of Steven Jackson (at this point, that should surprise no one). What stood out to me was the series of shots of the lethargic crowd that semi-filled the Dome. At its peak, we saw a seated and passive golf clap as the Rams fought for their greatest victory in years. As I searched for an explanation of what I perceived as apathy I couldn’t help but notice that every camera shot also included at least one person in Cardinal gear.
Cardinal fans are often regarded as “the best fans in
baseball” and while there may be grounds to refute that assumption, I’m not
here to do that. I only mean to suggest
that their greatness does not seem to translate to football. When I attended the week four game between
the Rams and Redskins, my buddy and I stood and shouted in a drunken stupor for
every defensive stand. My heart hurt as
we received dirty looks from the sixty year old season ticket holders in front
of us and my ears bled as the soccer mom behind us (sporting a Bo Hart
jersey-tee) saved her only scream in years for, “sit down, my kids can’t see!” Your kids can’t see? Maybe they can’t see because their faces are
(figuratively) buried in your bosom.
They should be on their feet, they should be standing on their chairs,
they should be…with their father! If you
want a family picnic, go to the ball park.
This is a professional football game. This is the gridiron. This is war! I wanted to kill this woman, if only to
properly callous her children, but the few sober cells that somehow
circumvented the booze inside of my head allowed me to recoil and realize that it wasn't her fault, she simply was not equipped to be a football fan. The very attributes that allowed her to be a
great Cardinal fan, that allowed her to balance enthusiasm with etiquette, prohibited
her from being an effective Rams fan. I
fell into a momentary depression. Maybe,
as a city, we just didn’t have the moxie to properly support a football
team. Then, just as I found my Ram pride
waning to the lees, I heard a great jeering from the section next to me. I turned to see a middle aged man in a Lavar
Arrington jersery, his head soaked in beer, cowering before a man sporting the
Blue Note, and there I found what I was looking for, what the Rams were looking
for. 
Friday night’s game against Vancouver was the 45th
consecutive sellout for the Blues, a team that's made the vastly inclusive
NHL playoffs only once since 2004. Anyone who has
had the privilege of attending all three of the major sports venues in St.
Louis will tell you that Blues games, unequivocally, are the most intense live
sporting events in the city. This forty-plus
year old franchise has never won a championship. Still, there is a pride and passion behind
the phrase, “the Blue Note doesn't hit the floor” that is unmatched even by a
franchise as storied as the St. Louis Cardinals. These fans are rowdy and relentless. They pound beers in the parking garage
between periods. They shout, “Red Wings
suck!” in the bathrooms, even when the Blues are hosting the Flyers. They physically accost Blackhawk fans that dare
to wear Patrick Kane jerseys to Scott Trade on a Friday night. These are the people we need in the Dome.
I understand the difficulties. It’s easy for Cardinal fans to make it to a
noon game on Sunday. They’re already
awake, having attended 8:30 mass and taken
their grandmothers to brunch while Blues fans are still sleeping through their
hangovers or riding out their meth benders.
Kroenke needs to implement a discount beer for breakfast promotion to
get them out of bed (a legitimate place to tailgate would also help). This city is losing the battle for football
pride, and it’s losing it in the stands as much as it is on the field. Shut your mouth when we have the ball and act
like an animal when we don’t. No one
wants hear this, but Richie was right when he said, “…Our fans get in their
seats, they don’t know how to cheer, when to cheer.” We have a choice to make. This war is not over (Was it over when the
German’s bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell
no!). We can either show the rest of the
league that we’re real football fans with gravel in our guts and spit in our
eyes, or we can sit in our seats, touch up our makeup, and wait for the winter warm-up. Who’s with me?
