I won't aim this post at the people of New York. I know they are a diverse and forgiving lot -- I think they downgraded from double-A to triple-A batteries on Rocker's second visit back to Shea after those "comments." Look, I get that everyone views Atlanta and her sports fans as apathetic. Heck, I even named the SBN Atlanta blog "Fairweather Report," after our sometimes fairweather fans.
But there's just a level of enemy fan ignorance and hate I will not tolerate, and this misinformed lazy journalist from ESPN New York just hit my hot button:
If the New York Yankees are the standard for excellence in baseball, Atlanta is the epitome of the bottom of the barrel when it comes to fan support.
Hence, the Atlanta Falcons shouldn't be allowed to win and reward some of the worst fans in the country. They just don't get it. They are both missing in action and simply not passionate enough to appreciate their team winning in the NFL playoffs and moving on to the next round.
He then goes on to match John Rocker in ignorance and hate when he writes this:
Your typical Atlanta fan -- who is probably from another city since so few are actually from ATL -- will be preoccupied with something else. They might not even be sure what time the game is on.
In fact, at some point, they might ask a friend -- filled with sweet tea -- at a pork-saturated barbeque, "Are the Falcons playing today?"
He has based his assertion that Atlanta is the worst sports town in America on the Atlanta Braves attendance and other imagined or poorly researched reasons. They even have a sidebar stating that the Braves attendance in 2011 was 15th out of the 30 teams in baseball. He never mentions that the New York Mets had a lower attendance than Atlanta last year.
He lists the Falcons home attendance as 15th in the league, but fails to mention the percentage of their home attendance (96.8) was higher than his New York Giants (96.3) or the New York Jets (95.7). You ignorant freaking idiot! The Falcons do a better job of selling out their stadium than either of your precious New York teams. The Braves drew more fans last year than your pitiful Mets.
So Atlanta is the worst sports town in America, eh? Well it's pretty clear that ESPN New York has the worst sports writers in America. And I'm just going to base that off of one thing I read and the general impression that I get from that one thing, without doing any real research or thinking for one moment that my hypothesis might be a complete load of crap. The fact that Rob Parker gets paid to write about sports should tell you all you need to know about the "quality" of ESPN New York.
The Dirty Birds are going to kick some Giant ass this Sunday. (Oh, and next season the Braves, as well as every other team in the league, are going to stomp all over the Mets -- the worst team in baseball.)