True Believers Quotes

“A friend tells a story about taking his ten-year-old son to a Jets game. The game was being played during a driving rain on a freezing cold day, and the Jets lost by twenty points to a team they were supposed to beat. As they headed toward the exits, the boy looked up, with tears in his eyes, and asked, 'Dad, why are we Jets fans?”
― Joe Queenan, True Believers: The Tragic Inner Life of Sports Fans

“Setting aside the issues of homicide and suicide for the time being, let us examine what it means to be a true fan. My harried therapist once asked if I could delineate my specific philosophy in a concise and economical fashion, if only for the edification of the vulgar. Hey, no problem, Doc. I just happen to have a tattered old piece of paper in my wallet setting forth the fan canon; it had been given to me as a boy by a rakish carny who claimed to have once been Dizzy Dean’s grocery boy. It consisted of the following items:

Never switch allegiances.
Show some respect.
Visit the shrines.
Never give up.
Never give in.
Never leave early.
Neither a front-runner not a Johnny-come-lately be.
Accept no substitutes.
Wait until next year.
Never turn down tickets to see Jordan.”
― Joe Queenan, True Believers: The Tragic Inner Life of Sports Fans