© 2024
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
An update has been released for the Android version of the WAMC App that addresses performance issues. Please check the Google Play Store to download and update to the latest version.

The Team America (Irrationally) Loves to Hate

No sport in the world has figured out how to play to its fans more than professional wrestling. I understand that’s largely because it’s actually not a sport but rather a show that looks like sport, but regardless, wrestling has figured out a few key constructs in keeping a fan base engaged. Perhaps the most obvious of those, outside of a folding chair to knee, is that wrestling knows how to create the most engaging figure in all of sport. More than the hero or the star. Wrestling has the heel – or villain. Basically, the person we all love to hate. Wrestling fans watch the sport just a much for the folks they hate than those they adore. Which is why the heel turn – a good guy going bad – is the most engaging moment in athletics.

This is good news for another sport that needs to keep looking to build its fan base in an age of changing tastes and short attention spans. I’m speaking of baseball, a sport that’s always worried about attracting fans. And baseball has found its heel. It’s the Houston Astros, the American League club facing the Atlanta Braves in the World Series that began last night with a 6-2 Atlanta win. Houston may have had one of the greatest heel turns in all of sport history, Hulk Hogan to Hollywood Hulk level, when it was discovered that Houston was stealing signs from the opposing teams throughout the 2017 and 2018 seasons, the former in which the ‘stros won their first ever World Series. As you likely know, this wasn’t an innocent, happened a couple of times endeavor, but rather a highly tuned system involving camera feeds to the dugout and banging on trash cans to tip off batters. The fallout was harsh and wide spread, including pretty severe punishments from MLB, a few high level firings, and the scorn of pretty much every baseball fan not living in the greater Houston area. Opposing pitchers threw at Houston batters, and the city of Los Angeles even passed a resolution demanding Houston surrender their World Series title to the runner-up Dodgers, something that didn’t happen. And not for nothing, prior to all this, Houston was a relatively liked franchise, one of the many that could never get over the hump despite a whole lot of close calls.

Apparently, all that retribution hasn’t been enough, as Houston remains the one baseball club that could possibly get Yankees fans to root for the Red Sox, which didn’t change the fate of the ALCS. As someone who grew up in Houston and remembers watching Nolan Ryan pitch a playoff game against the Phillies during elementary school, back when they played day baseball and public schools could show sports during school, I still occasionally wear an Astros hat while I’m out and about here in Northern New Jersey, and I swear I’d get fewer dirty looks if was wearing a MAGA hat. Baseball fans have made the Houston baseball team the personification of everything that’s wrong with sports. It’s way worse than the shade thrown at other well-known cheaters – say the Patriots and Spygate, or the Patriots and Deflategate. Even at New England’s lowest point, a whole lot of folks outside of Boston seemed to root for them, and Tom Brady is as iconic as ever. Conversely, Houston has somehow made the Atlanta Braves, an otherwise unlikable franchise, into America’s team – which is what they always used to call themselves anyway. The only other cheater who’s been as hated may be Lance Armstrong, also from Texas.

It’s hard to know exactly why the venom is so strong in this particular case. The Astros have largely apologized, and to be fair, no one in world history has very given a championship trophy back. When they strip colleges or Olympic athletes of their hardware, it’s Charles Heston style – from their cold, dead hands. To be fair, the intensity of distain towards an otherwise normal franchise is pretty illogical, if not bizarre. And that’s not just because I’m from H-town.

Perhaps it’s because it lasted for so long, or because they didn’t repent enough. Perhaps it’s because baseball clings to some antiquated notion of rules and integrity, even as the sport is littered with transgressions over the years. Or maybe it’s simply because the sport needed someone to hate, a team that unites everyone and gives people a reason to pay attention. Hate can be a strong motivator, if you’re to believe pretty much every episode of Billions ever. Or, of course, if you’re a study of professional wrestling.

Keith Strudler is the director of the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University. You can follow him on twitter at @KeithStrudler

The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.

Related Content
  • There’s a longstanding mythology in big-time college football about thestudent walk-on. The kid who wasn’t a big-time recruit and still found his way onto the team. It’s the narrative of the 12th Man at Texas A&M and essentially the entire storyline of Rudy at Notre Dame. There’s little more intoxicating in the world of sport than the overlooked little engine that could.
  • The quick and decisive story of Jon Gruden’s downfall is as remarkable in its unintended origin as its expedience. The now former NFL head coach was not the intended target of an ongoing investigation of abusive workday practices in the Washington Football Team’s operations. That was supposed to be Washington owner Dan Snyder and his senior leaders, including former team president Bruce Allen, a process that resulted in a $10 million fine and a whole lot of workplace sensitivity training. But the real loser in this exposition was Gruden when it was revealed that he had written a series of emails with misogynistic, homophobic, and racist content to Allen over the course of several years.
  • On a positive note for the Jacksonville Jaguars, they finally have something to distract fans from their awful 0-4 start to this football season, which, if you’re keeping score, marks 19 straight losses for the franchise.