Say The Wrong Thing

It happens often that I'm reading some item on the internet and they lose me. I don't mean by that I fail to understand anything. They'll say something that, more than just rubbing me the wrong way, makes me lose all faith in their ability to credibly convey the information they purport to have. I think to myself, "if they're dumb enough to say that, the rest of this is a waste of time that I'm inflicting on myself." I had one of those the other day.

I got into it because of a comment on some other article I wanted to prove was wrong. There would have been no point in proving it to the idiot who said it, of course. It was only worth proving to myself. The comment I respected no more than a loose dog on the street, and a loose dog on the street I would not consent to engaging in a debate with. Now, this point concerned the new San Francisco 49ers football stadium. I wanted to prove, if possible, that it was not publicly financed. The answer on that is complex, although the team would have you believe it's more simple, I think.

Now, I'm reading this article and liking it fine until the third paragraph. The article had set up this average Joe who was being considered by the team to help assess potential stadium sites on a parcel of land known to be rather odoriferous. He was good at smelling things, the article says. Now, the third paragraph is saying how he passes some standard test, and says how that, in addition to his "inimitable fanship", made him a clear winner. This is a man who loved the team and made almost every home game.

That stopped me in my tracks. For them to say that his fanship, described with such a term as "inimitable", made me think they don't know what that word means. If that's true, why should I read any further? They're dumb as rocks. If his fanship is inimitable, then no one is a fan on par with him. His intense fanship is predicated on the fact that he has missed few home games.That just does not reconcile for me, though it's probably fine to most people.

I could not locate numbers on the 49ers season ticket holder base. Conservatively, I think it's fair to say that if the stadium's capacity is in the area of 70 thousand, then surely there are thousands and thousands of season ticket holders. Are there more than ten thousand? I see no reason why not. The point is that if there are as many season ticket holders as that, how many are missing games? I can say, having been to some two hundred or so Dodgers home games in three seasons, that most baseball season ticket holders make hardly more than one or two games in seven.

There are 81 home games in a baseball season, though. A football team plays eight regular season home games, and you could reasonably throw in two preseason home games in addition to perhaps two or three playoff home games at the very most. That makes something like twelve home games that a 49ers season ticket holder could make in the best of possible years. We're to understand that this guy is inimitable because he has missed few home games in recent years.

I'm here to tell you that's no feat. If even ten thousand people hold season tickets, how many are missing any games? My guess is not many, but let's go very pessimistic and say that just ten percent of season ticket holders make every game. I sincerely doubt it's as low as that, but that gives you 1,000 human beings who are fans on par with this guy on the basis of home games attended. That hardly seems inimitable if 999 people are duplicating his devotion.

Of course the article (which I found was written by a team employee- something that would have turned me off all on its own) also noted that he drove a car painted in team colors. I'll allow that going that far knocks out a fair number of people. Is it inimitable? If the stadium regularly draws 70 thousand people, and 10 thousand have tickets to every game, and 1,000 actually attend every game (all of which is probably not accurate, since I have probably underestimated it all), then is it very probable that only one man in the bunch fancied himself such a fan that he had to have a car in team colors? I don't think so.

The point is that this man, as great a fan of the team as he is (whether that's an admirable thing or not), is by no means a rare specimen. The 49ers, being the often successful and widely popular team that they are, very probably have many fans like him. I'm sure enough of that that use of the word "inimitable" is grossly and comically inappropriate, and for even a stooge writer employed by the team to use it is absurd to me. I was really interested in the stadium, but I knew damn well after reading that word that there would be nothing of value in the words that followed, and there sure weren't.

I take no pleasure in saying so, but that's how I feel. God knows I expect no one to agree with me- very seldom does anyone agree with me, and even when they do my vehemence really puts them off - but each of us, though bound by the facts available to all, may form his or her own opinions. This is a prime example of mine, and maybe it will keep me remote from others for all my days, but I know of no other way to think (as much as I might want to learn). I think this writer is a damn fool.