I have no affection for the Angels (real or imagined), but I agree with every single word of this column. "Nation" = Nuremberg Rallies, and the bigger the "Nation" the uglier the *Rally.

*Which reminds me of how much I hate the "Rally Monkey". Like I said, I have no affection for the Angels whatsoever.

But in the world of baseball, I can think of no tribe so dull-witted, so bandwagonesque, so committed to turning what was once a charming underdog/curse story into an act with all the grace and humility of a Zell Miller speech in front of 15,000 fat Republicans howling for blood.

Well, I can think of one, anyway.

Well, if nothing else, the sympathy I was starting to feel for Angel fans after another playoff beatdown at the hands of the Sox has been washed away. Thanks Matt.

Matt Welch at this moment is giving mouth-to-mouth to the Angel fan base.

I don't think I've ever even heard anyone make light of the Donnie Moore situation, but that's probably because I haven't been listening hard enough. I'm sure someone, somewhere has done it.

That was a sad, sad story.

lol boo hoo

I generally like Matt Welch - he's a good writer over at Reason.

Too bad he's a whining man baby when it comes to his Angels getting stomped.

Flynn, I like the Red Sox (lived in Boston), and most of their fans are fine, but as with the Yankees, there is a significant meathead population there. The "nation" thing is a little over the top, to say the least.

It's not really my fault you don't understand the term nation as it appears in the dictionary, or even that you take it seriously. OMFG the best marketing team in MLB uses a term that makes Red Sox fans feel good. The Angels use a bunch of plastic sticks and a ####### monkey, how lame is that?

Orange County is the home of the John Birch Society, that doesn't mean everybody from the OC (or 95% of Angels fans) is a closet right-wing psychopathic racist.

Bandwagonesque -- Dinosaur Jr or Teenage Fanclub? Ahh, Teenage Fanclub. Get those two confused for no good reason other than a girl I liked introduced me to both at the same time.

Turbofolk? Not sure I've ever heard any (where have I been?!). Wiki makes it sound like crappy mash-ups of Balkan music and glam-pop.

I don't think I've ever even heard anyone make light of the Donnie Moore situation, but that's probably because I haven't been listening hard enough. I'm sure someone, somewhere has done it.

I was at a game in Anaheim against the Yankees about ten years ago, when an Angel pitcher gave up a couple of hits and a home run. A drunk Yankee fan yelled "Don't Donnie Moore yourself, #######!" and shot himself in the head with his finger. Then he high-fived his drunk Yankee fan friends. That stuck with me.

Speaking of the John Birch Society, sometime in the past couple of weeks, Dave Simms--a very clever and amusing broadcaster--said that a player was lined up "farther to the right than John Birch."

Yeah, I had never heard a Donnie Moore joke in my life, either. #12 surprises me, especially since it came seemingly 12 years after the fact.

That said: Fanbases complaining about other fanbases is almost always going to turn out like Red Sox fans complaining about the Yankees' payroll advantage. People are going to ignore the complaint while wondering why you think you have the right to make it.

J Mascis looks like he's 60 these days.

Orange County is the home of the John Birch Society, that doesn't mean everybody from the OC (or 95% of Angels fans) is a closet right-wing psychopathic racist.

Hey now, we were just talking (prompted by Simms, actually) in the Lounge a while ago about my great uncle who has a "Lifetime Service" award from JBS. And he's no closet right-wing psychopath...oh, wait. Never mind.

Wiki makes it sound like crappy mash-ups of Balkan music and glam-pop.

Imagine the horror of Balkan folk music coked out of its skull and mashed up with pounding mid-'90s Euro-techno, preferably distorted out of the back speakers of some stolen Mercedes driven by a guy in a tracksuit, and you begin to get the idea.

J Mascis looks like he's 60 these days.

J Mascis looks like she's 60 these days. Dude looks seriously like my grandma, if she were still alive. But boy could he play guitar, etc.

i don't suppose President Remy would sign off on Extraordinary Rendition on this chucklehead so the kids down at the Red Sox "academy" in Venezuela can teach him proper respect and give us the names of his compatriots, hmm?

matt darling boy,

sure does seem like a long time ago you and NTA were blogging on "who GETS to say - we're #2!!!"

and i didn't even know you had left the LA times and gone back to reason and had to move to DC. next thing u know you will realize that the DH is the tool of de debbil and you become a ex-spos fan...

Orange County is the home of the John Birch Society

But it was headquartered in a suburb of Boston until 1989...

All those people who made cracks at the expense of Donnie Moore are poor excuses for human beings. And as #12 demonstrates, they are to be found in every fan base.

But I am very sure that there's not been one Angels fan, ever, to reference Tony C in a bad way.

Ever.

I went to high school in Belmont. We used to egg the JBS headquarters. I wish both the Sox and the Angels could lose this series. J Mascis made one great record ("Bug").

But I am very sure that there's not been one Angels fan, ever, to reference Tony C in a bad way.

Maybe because we traded a good reliever and Doug Griffin so we could get four home runs for him?

I'm embarrassed to admit I had no idea Conigliaro ever played for the Angels.

I can think of no tribe so dull-witted, so bandwagonesque

That's really not fair to Teenage Fanclub.

But as I've said before, there's no lower form of life than a Red Sox fan at a road game. Scum of the earth.

kevin -- If I had a dollar for every letter to the editor that began "For a magazine called Reason," well, let's just say there's a drinking game.

Don't do what Donnie Don't Does.

Matt, in my limited experience (a friend of mine was on the editorial board of The Daily Texan, and another works for the WSJ), there's always a drinking game for the editors...

I'm embarrassed to admit I had no idea Conigliaro ever played for the Angels.

I had no idea, either. A half season 7 years before I was born, I'm not embarrassed.

I'm a little torn on Donnie Moore jokes. On the ome hand it was such an awful and tragic situation for all involved and Donnie obviously had some serious mental problems. It's tough to poke fun at even 20 years later.

On the other hand the difference between Donnie and OJ is that OJ and Donnie's wife both lived on after. That was no laughing matter to the Browns or Goldmans either and it seemed like there were no shortage of people cracking wise about that incident much sooner than any current Donnie Moore comments. So for me it's not the same thing as making fun of Lyman Bostock or even Tim Crews and Steve Olin. Moore was as much a perpetrator in his situation (if not more) as he was a victim.

So are Donnie Moore jokes in 2008 still in poor taste? Sure. Are they evidence of some sort of deep moral bankruptcy on the speaker? I'm not necessarily going to sign off on that.

But as I've said before, there's no lower form of life than a Red Sox fan at a road game. Scum of the earth.

Whatever.

VM, I'm as much a fan of distasteful jokes as anyone. Other than yelling them in public, which is definitely a sign of disrespect for others (one should consider the audience before telling distasteful jokes, which you can't do if you're yelling it in front of a bunch of strangers), I've got pretty much zero problem with Donnie Moore jokes. I just find it odd that people are seemingly still making them, as I never heard one back then, and I sure as hell haven't heard one recently.

I'm confused. As a Red Sox fan for years, I finally had a chance to see a game on the road when I traveled to Tampa Bay. There were many Red Sox fans there, partially because the games get sold out at Fenway Park every single year, regardless of the success of the team. Is that the definition of "bandwagon"? I believe, in fact, that the red Sox just set a new record for consecutive baseball sellouts at home. The last couple of games this season were meaningless, even if they were playing the Yankees, and yet the seats were filled, even if it was raining. That to me is not the definition of "Bandwagon". Yes, some Red Sox fans are obnoxious, as are fans of any other team out there. Yes, I understand envy. After all, Red Sox fans had been envious for years until recently. But getting back to my visit to Tampa Bay, I simply sat there and watched the game. A Rays fan who was wearing a BRAND NEW shirt and had all of the other paraphernalia accused me of being on the bandwagon. I asked him how many games he had been too, and he told me that he had never attended until this year. Hmmm...bandwagon perhaps?

Go ahead and be envious and bemoan that SOME of are fans are jackasses. Based on these comments, obviously Red Sox fans don't have a monopoly on that aspect. Just remember that most of us as Red Sox fans do not despise the other team (Yankees perhaps excepted for some). We simply want to win and when we do, we celebrate. If that is the definition of "bandwagon" then so be it.

It is probably somewhat unfair to say that Red Sox fans are the worst sub-species of human in the world.

Not to mention unfair to Cubs fans, Yankees fans, Mets fans, and Patriots fans. And that's just sports. The truly worst sub-species of human in the world? Libertarians. Witness, Nieporent. And Megan McArdle. These "people" should be basted with used motor oil and shot into the sun.

Next time you hear a Donnie Moore joke

... it will be the first time I hear a Donnie Moore joke...

shoot back with a reference to Pumpsie Green, and note the unblinking glare of incomprehension.

. I would stake my life on the Sox' fanbase being able to beat that of the Angels in any measure of baseball historical knowledge

But that's kinda not fair, NN: Sox fans have more history at their disposal.

maybe its not fair, but most sox fans wouldnt react with an "unblinking glare of incomprehension" about historical baseball references.

These "people" should be basted with used motor oil and shot into the sun.

I think you've created a new office drinking game....

The Red Sox fans are less obnoxious than the Yankees fans who still mark the bottom of the rung for annoying. But online ... well, probably the mark is taken there, too, by the sore winners of the 2005 White Sox variety, but that was soon washed away by their failures to repeat.

Matt's right about taking the meat out of the Red Sox' bowl. It's way past time the Angels figured out that their crappy offensive strategy is all too easy to shut down in the postseason, being as it's reliant on stringing together tons and tons of singles.

Oh Reason...

Having attended multiple games in Angels Stadium, including a playoff game, I think it's really, really rich for any Angel fan to dis another team's fanbase. Because there is nothing more pathetically uninformed, shallowly committed, and easily distracted by Things Not Baseball at a game than the Angel fanbase.

Is kevin slagging me, or Tony?

Having attended multiple games in Angels Stadium, including a playoff game, I think it's really, really rich for any Angel fan to dis another team's fanbase. Because there is nothing more pathetically uninformed, shallowly committed, and easily distracted by Things Not Baseball at a game than the Angel fanbase.

Apparently you've never been to Chavez Ravine.

Btw, I've been to Angels Stadium many many times, and your description is silly.

Btw, I've been to Angels Stadium many many times, and your description is silly.

No, don't you get it? Angels fans are uninformed because we don't, for example, boo the opposing catcher for making a trip to the mound after our own catcher has made about 237 trips in the first three innings. And we don't start "let's go Angels" chants in the middle of the second inning when nothing is going on. And we've never started a "Yankees Suck" chant at a game in which the Yankees aren't playing, so that's all proof of how uncommitted and easily distracted we are.

Thanks, Chip, for once again proving that the Red Sox have by far the most douchey fanbase in professional sports.

Italian soccer fans are probably more racist, though they wouldn’t be caught dead wearing a pink cap.

Palermo supporters would...

A lot of Sawx fans have forgotten the whole "We're the victimized fanbase" thing and pretty much just steal from the Yankee fans' "Count the rings" playbook now. I counted them. 7 rings in 107 years. Eh- not that impressive a ratio, honestly.

Also, as for Boston fans' "knowledge", I was at a Sawx-Angels game last year and the Boston supporters behind us had never heard of Kevin Millar, "Cowboy up", "We're idiots!", etc. They were above the age of 5 by about three decades, so they don't get a free pass on that stuff.