Sports writing probably
didn't need
its own version of Chuck Klosterman, since Klosterman does a good job writing
about sports himself, but there's always room for one more scribe with clear
eyes and a keen wit to flout the conventional wisdom. In 2005, reluctant
sportswriter Will Leitch founded Deadspin, a blog dedicated to talking about
sports from an irreverent, fan-friendly perspective, primarily by mocking the
pomposity and arrogance of modern athletes and the jaded pricks who cover them.
Now, Leitch has written a sort of 95 Theses of sports, under the title God
Save The Fan,
with a lengthy subtitle that promises to explain "how preening sportscasters,
athletes who speak in the third person, and the occasional convicted
quarterback have taken the fun out of sports (and how we can get it back)."
As a blog, Deadspin
sometimes betrays its own principles by treating sports so flippantly that the
site's writers are the ones taking the fun out of sports. But as a book, God
Save The Fan
is smart, funny, and largely consistent in its philosophy. Leitch presents a
series of anecdotes and essays about players, owners, and the media in which he
argues that self-righteousness and excessive corporate control are preventing
fans from relating to athletes on a human level. To the people in charge, fans
are painted-up alcoholics whose only function is to buy tickets and T-shirts,
then shut up. To the media, fans are so stupid that they'll listen to two
"experts" yell at each other for minutes on end even though neither blow-dried
pundit really believes in what they're saying. But Leitch thinks fans should
play more fantasy leagues to help loosen up their loyalty, owners and the media
should promote the players who say and do interesting things as opposed to the
keenly focused athlete-bots, and all concerned should be less uptight about
steroids and bloggers.
If there's a major lapse
in God Save The Fan's worldview, it's that Leitch romanticizes "the fan" too
much. He conveniently forgets—probably because Deadspin comments are
moderated—that fans too often ruin sports by behaving like louts and
bigots. But whatever Leitch's self-serving biases, he gets a lot of leeway, if
only because he's sharp enough to note that Kansas City Royals fans "consider
baseball a link to youth rather than something entirely relevant to life
today," and "masturbate to a picture of Bill James." It's funny because it's
true.