Examining the "Fanhood" in the City of Champions

A guest blog from Matthew Henderson:


Well Pittsburgh fans, it’s that time again. The Pittsburgh Steelers are one win away from their 8^th Super Bowl appearance and the shot at “Seventh Heaven.” While some of you cannot wait to watch the three big games taking place these next two Sundays, many others are looking forward to a journey to Laurel Township to get a look at the diamond Ben Roethlisberger put on some girl’s finger.

I’m Matt Henderson, and I hope to be an occasional contributor to Quarterly Sports. When asked if I would like to write for the blog, I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to address a problem I see amongst our Western Pennsylvania peers: The difference between Pittsburgh sports fans and just Pittsburgh fans. I walk around a college campus on a day-to-day basis and I sit on Facebook until the wee hours of the night. I must say that it’s disgusting how everybody’s status will be about the Steelers upcoming game or a non-hooking call in the Pens game. Every person I see around campus is wearing a Penguins t-shirt or Sidney Crosby jersey, even if they lost to the Flyers the night prior.

See, there is a big difference between Steelers fans and Steelers football fans, and Penguins fans and Penguins hockey fans. I’ll even address the Pirates a little later for those of you who still care. But we will start out with the Pittsburgh Steelers. I’ll be the first to tell you that I love the sport of football. Watching the play-to-play battle between a left tackle trying to protect his quarterback’s blind side and the opposition’s star pass rusher is one of the best matchups in sports.

Football fans are great people if you want to talk. They know the game, they know the players, they know teams’ tendencies. They give their opinions and, for the most part, their analysis is intelligent; talking to Steelers fans make me feel like I’m wasting my breath.

These are the people that stop watching the team when they’re on the ropes at 7-5, but will hop back onto the bandwagon following four straight wins and a trip to the postseason, a la 2005. And when the team is doing poor, Steelers fans are grocery shopping at Giant Eagle on Sunday afternoons. Steelers football fans will be waving their yellow towels in front of their television sets.

Steelers fans also only know one thing: No matter the record, the Steelers are still the best team in all of sports. You can go up to a Steelers fan after losing to the 1-11 Cleveland Browns on national television asking what happened and the response will be, “Well we have six Super Bowls. How many do you have?” I’d be paying Shaun Suisham’s contract if I had a dollar for every time I heard that comment. Matter of fact is Steelers fans, that six Super Bowls does not have any relevance on the current season or the upcoming game. In fact, I would assume that most Steelers fans forgot or never even knew that football existed in Pittsburgh before 1969.

These are also the fans that you cannot sit next to at games. The ones that do not know what is happening, who’s in the game, or who’s hurt. They scream for holding penalties every time James Harrison and LaMarr Woodley are taken to the ground. They’ll scream thinking Roethlisberger can hear him that the wide receiver was open, even though he was not. They yell for pass interference every time there is a little contact between defense and receiver. After a string of pass plays that move the ball down the field, they yell obscenities at Bruce Arians for running the ball on the next play.

These are Steelers fans. They have loud mouths, and they do not know why the referee throws his hat when a player steps out of bounds while covering a punt. They do not know the rules of the game. Most games do not matter, because until San Francisco or Dallas steps it up, the Steelers are the only team with six Super Bowls. It is the same thing I have heard for the past ten years. Steelers fans jump on the bandwagon when the team is chasing a Super Bowl, and they are nowhere to be found when the team is slumping for the season.

Steelers football fans know the game. They will sit and talk with you about how the Steelers performed or did not perform the past week. They can name you players on other teams. They will not say that the Steelers have six Super Bowls, but that the defense got torn to shreds by Tom Brady and that William Gay cannot even cover a fat, slow tight end, even if it was Jim Kleinsasser. They stay with the team through thick and through thin. You will find them with their Terrible Towels, hot wings, Doritos, and beer on game days either by themselves or with few other football fans while Steelers fans are having the entire neighborhood over.

Now to the Penguins. The Penguins fan base grew by probably a good 70-80% following the lockout in 2004. Why? Of all teams in that 2005 draft lottery that was made very even due to no hockey the year prior, the Penguins lit the lamp by acquiring the number one pick and the rights to Sidney Crosby. Again, why? Yes, it is great for the city, but please ladies, keep your Penguins Facebook statuses to yourselves. One out of every ten females may be able to call themselves a Penguins hockey fan. A girl that actually likes hockey is the equivalent to a guy liking “The View.” It just does not happen, but hey, even Danny O’Shea beat Kevin down Cherry Hill one time.

Just look at the Penguins attendance numbers. The year before the lockout, the Penguins were dead last in attendance, with an average of 11,000 plus fans a game. That number shot up to almost 16,000 the year after the lockout and, in the year they went to the Stanley Cup finals and lost, that number was at a staggering 17,000 plus, or 100.7% full.

I talked to a friend on campus today and told him about this piece, and his comment was that no one wants to watch a team when they’re losing. That must be why no one attended the 17-win Penguins games, and now they are diehards and Sidney Crosby is a bigger celebrity than Betty White. I find that assumption to be unreasonable. Look no further than the Cleveland Browns, the Oakland Raiders, and the Chicago Cubs. 

Cleveland Browns fans are and have always been faithful, unless they’re down 41-9 in the fourth quarter. Raiders fans bleed silver and black (and made those the most popular and recognizable team colors in pro sports), even with Al Davis still there ruining season after season. And I have never seen another fan base like the Chicago Cubs - they have not seen a championship in over 100 years and that stadium is always full. Saying no one wants to watch a team who is losing is false, and it really shows a lot about a city’s “fanhood.” And Pittsburgh calls themselves a “hockey town.”

But back to my point. If Sidney Crosby does not go to Pittsburgh, then what would have happened? Assuming they did not leave the city, I happen to think that none of these people would be splurging all over their Penguins t-shirts. My point is that Penguins hockey fans have been there since the good ol’ days of Mario, Ulf Samuelsson, and mullets. Penguins fans are since at best 2005, maybe even later than that. I would love to sit in a class with no one wearing Pens gear. I would not have to walk around and listen to people talk about whether Malkin should have passed the puck or shot it. And do not even get me started on people that take pictures with and/or meet some of the team members and act like they are now best friends.

And not that many Penguins fans know much about hockey, at least not to my knowledge. I’m not the biggest hockey fan, but even I know a thing or two about the sport. Every hockey fan knows what July 1^st indicates. Penguins fans can assume that July 1^st marks the beginning of the second half of the calendar year, or the time to start going to dollar stores to pick up those Christmas in July Secret Santa office party gifts. Other than that, I really only know the basic fundamental rules of the game. There is a lot I do not know, and I am told I am a sports nerd. So I can only wonder what is going through these ladies and new fans’ heads.

And now my pride and joy - the Pittsburgh Pirates. I really, really want to see them win…or do I?

See, I fear a winning season by the Pirates will provoke what I like to call “Pittsburgh Penguins Syndrome,” otherwise known as, “I have not watched or paid any attention to the team since Kevin Young was leading the team in home runs and Jason Kendall was going through three cans of chewing tobacco per game, but now that they’re winning I’m going to post Facebook statuses about the team and try to go to as many games as I can Syndrome.”

What attracts people to Pirates games now? Buc night, Primanti Brothers, All You Can Eat seats, Zambelli Fireworks, Phil Vassar, bobbleheads, the chances that Lloyd McClendon will come and steal first base again, and the Pirate Parrot shooting hot dogs out of a gun to Bob Walk in the press box. I attend as much as I can. Heck, I probably see about one-fourth of their 30 wins per season.

It pains me to think that fans will flock to PNC Park to watch the Pirates when they start winning (I say when because it is bound to happen). Not only will ticket prices rise, but it will be hard to get a seat period given the “fanhood” of people in Pittsburgh. Pretty soon, you’ll see these people that are not baseball fans and do not know anything about the Pirates wearing McCutchen #22 jerseys and McCutchen #34 jerseys, not knowing which one is the centerfield phenom. They’ll probably assume that he changed his number at one point during his career.

These fans will be the ones that take on the mold of other Pittsburgh fans by not knowing the sport. People up the first base line will moan and yell at the umpire if he calls a 2-2 pitch a ball, because they do not know the catcher is setting up outside and he moves his glove an inch to frame the pitch. They will not like when Clint Hurdle takes out Brad Lincoln with two outs to go in a 2-0 shutout after walking a runner and throwing 120-plus pitches.

As much as it does not seem like it, baseball can be a complicated game, and the baseball fans that still attend games now do not need to suffer when these Pirates fans take over the ballpark. It will be these fans that claim they always believed, when 1,000 of them probably walked out at the Pittsburgh Pirates-Washington Nationals game in 2007. I am looking forward to the Pirates winning, but not to the people that will be filling up PNC Park, probably wearing Penguins uniforms.

All in all, Pittsburgh fans are as fake as a two dollar bill. They cannot follow their teams in times of despair.  They make excuses every time they lose, or they go to the past to fight back with an answer. It is not fun to be on the outside looking in at them. It is actually quite annoying, especially when you just happen to be sitting next to one of them at a sporting event. I am not saying that all fans are like this. Thank you to those of you that read this that are football, hockey, or baseball fans. Support your team with pride, and I will always be open to talk sports with you.

Well, time for me to close this thing. Only a few things left for me to do: I’m going to order my McCutchen #34 jersey, change my Facebook status to reflect the Pens loss to the Devils Thursday night, and dream about what it’s like to have six Super Bowls.