I want to talk about the World Series, but not the catastrophic fifth inning that brought the Dodgers a championship in Game 5. No, I want to talk about Tuesday night’s game 4, and to do so, I am going to take off my Red Sox hat for a moment -- although I’m going to keep it nearby, just in case I need it.
I watched this World Series, in full disclosure, because I’m a bit of a closet Dodgers fan. It is convenient that this year being a bit of a Dodgers fan allows me to maintain my AnyoneButTheYankees stance, but also because essentially the Dodgers have become the best of the Red Sox and have been for a while, whether it’s my unflinching forever love and gratitude to Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, he the stealer of bases that helped end Boston’s championship drought, or the fact that my beloved Mookie Betts has found a home in Los Angeles where he is appreciated -- and paid -- the way he deserves to be. Indeed, in 2023, I went to the Dodgers’ opening day, trekking through traffic to sit behind Mookie in the bleachers, waving to Joe Kelly and Kiké Hernandez and JD Martinez as if they were old friends.
That said, I am not, by any means, a passionate fan of the Dodgers. Which made it easy for me, during Game 4, to go into full professor mode, as I am currently at the midterm point of the fall semester at Manhattanville University, and I am teaching a course entitled Ethics in Sport.
In a few weeks, my students will get to the final section of the course, in which the ethics of fandom takes center stage. Game 4 served up an embarrassment of riches from which to choose for class discussion. The headline, of course, is the assault -- and make no mistake, it was an assault -- on Mookie Betts, a horrific moment when two Yankees’ fans grabbed both his glove and his free hand to try to get the ball away from him. It was terrible to witness in real time; the replays are all the more dreadful. How lucky we are that Betts was apparently not hurt.
But perhaps even worse than the actual assault (remember: we are using the word assault) were the fans who hugged the assailants as security escorted them out, two brain surgeons who paid some ungodly price to watch half an inning of what turned out to be a banger of a game for the Yankees. Debate ensued about whether or not they were banned from Game 5, banned for life, refunded their money, and so on -- with the two assailants themselves weighing in because media sought them out for interviews, further normalizing their behavior.
But wait, there’s more. There was the stellar fan moment when people taunted Dodgers playoff rock star Freddie Freeman during the Stand Up To Cancer moment of silence, in which Freeman held a sign reading MY MOM to the tune of people saying YOU SUCK. And it is almost not worth mentioning those who made fun of Shohei Ohtani’s shoulder injury. Except it is worth mentioning it. Because I would like to think that if I am ever graced with the chance to see Ohtani play in person -- even against the Red Sox, even in a World Series -- I would be excited to see this historic, generational, simply awesome human play a sport I love.
Playing a sport is supposed to teach us things. Dedication. Discipline. How to follow rules. What happens when we break rules. How to strive for excellence. How to respect your opponent. It is not a zero-sum game, but rather a space where you can learn something even if you lose, a mutual quest for excellence -- something fancy ethicists call “mutualism” -- in which redemption is always a possibility, and the hope of coming back better is why we return.
But there are lessons for fans, too -- moral responsibilities, even. My students study the work of sports ethicist Nicholas Dixon, who is one of the few philosophers to focus on fans. He breaks fandom into two sorts: the partisan fan, who is a faithful supporter of a team because of a personal or familial connection, and the purist fan, who supports the team that illustrates the uppermost merits of the game, with flexible allegiance. Partisan fans are motivated by a sometimes-blind loyalty while purists are devotees of the game itself.
Neither sort of fan is ideal, according to Dixon. Rather, we should strive for being a moderate fan, one who can combine their loyalty with a want for games to be played well and fairly. We should be fans who demonstrate respect for opponents, ask for fair and skillful play from both teams, and celebrate excellence when we see it. This kind of fandom isn’t easy because while it doesn’t condemn someone’s devotion to a team – it isn’t a call for us all to be expert sport purists – it does discourage a strictly emotional loyalty to one side, a win-at-all-costs mentality.
Example: when a goalie on the opposing team of your favorite soccer team makes a good save, can you appreciate the save, perhaps even muttering, or yelling, “GOOD JOB, KEEPER!” while commiserating at the lost chance to get on the scoreboard?
It’s hard. Fans are passionate -- the word does come from fanatic, I am constantly reminding myself -- and while being moderately partisan might be ethically ideal, as it requires merging a fan’s love for a team with a more universal love for the game being played and excellence that we witness, it might not fulfill the “why” of being a spectator in the first place: to create some kind of meaning in our lives through whatever it is we are watching.
But a loyalty that motivates us to cheer injury or taunt someone while they are publicly remembering their late mother or physically accost an athlete who is successfully completing a play is not part of any kind of fandom that sport should want. It not only fails to respect the opponent, it fails to respect the essence of sport itself.
Amy Bass is professor of sport studies and chair of the division of social science and communication at Manhattanville University. Bass is the author of ONE GOAL: A COACH, A TEAM, AND THE GAME THAT BROUGHT A DIVDED TOWN TOGETHER, among other titles. In 2012, she won an Emmy for her work with NBC Olympic Sports on the London Olympic Games.
The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.
