Product Description

Why do fans live and die with their teams? For Yankee, Cowboy, and Laker fans the answer is fairly clear: the return on investment is relatively high. But why do people root so passionately for tragically inept teams like the Boston Red Sox, the Chicago Cubs, and the Philadelphia Phillies? Why do people organize their emotional lives around lackluster franchises such as the Cleveland Cavaliers, the San Diego Padres, and the Phoenix Suns, none of whom have ever won a single championship in their entire history? Is it pure tribalism? An attempt to maintain contact with one's vanished childhood? In True Believers, humorist and lifelong Philly fan Joe Queenan answers these and many other questions, shedding light on-and reveling in-the culture and psychology of his countless fellow fans.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1026604 in Books
• Published on: 2004-03-16
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

From Amazon.com
"To me, the Phillies and Eagles are exactly like nicotine:," writes Joe Queenan in his painful and deeply funny book True Believers: The Tragic Inner Life of Sports Fans, "a preposterously noxious semi-hallucinogenic substance capable of giving great pleasure for brief periods of time, but that will ultimately destroy your health." Targets of Queenan's blowtorch mockery in previous books have included Hollywood, chain restaurants, and baby boomers. But here, he shines the spotlight on himself in an extended examination on what it means to join in the unique self-flagellation that is sports fandom. That flagellation is made more painful when, as in Queenan's case, the fan has sacrificed their time, emotional well-being, and regard among family members to following teams that often suck real bad. But True Believers is less a work of psychological research than a ruminative and passionate explanation of the rules of conduct by which the author believes fans should live. These same rules, of course, are discussed all the time by fans on bleacher seats, bar stools, and living room couches around the world as they desperately hope that this will finally be the year the Cubs or Cardinals or Clippers finally get it together. But rarely have the rules been codified in one bound volume. Queenan shines when attacking the dreaded "bandwagon" fan and when describing his decision not to stop the young son of a family friend from ruining his life by rooting for the Mets. And he's poignant and refreshingly void of cynicism in relating the last days of his father and how they overlapped with a pivotal Eagles-Falcons game. This is a lively and entertaining read that should appeal to any sports fan except those incomprehensible jerks that root for the Lakers and Yankees. --John Moe

From Publishers Weekly
Queenan's latest should be required reading not just for the folks of the sardonic subtitle but also for their wives, girlfriends and sports-phobic pals. The humorist spotlights something that's as peculiar as it is pedestrian: the schlub who roots for sorry teams. Why do some of us back losers, Queenan (Balsamic Dreams) asks, and why defend this foolishness so passionately? The recovering Philadelphia fan (of all the city's teams) would know. He groups admirers into categories-"Fans Who Love Too Much," "Fans Who Misbehave," etc.-and grounds his quips in droll situations such as his visit to a therapist who has the nerve to say the fate of the rain forest is graver than the fate of the 76ers. Queenan doesn't limit his premise to one club or sport, either; he covers everything from the Boston Red Sox to the "cataleptic" Wizards in Washington. Everywhere, stubborn followers like him hope for a turnaround in the standings. His enthusiasts remember times, usually before they were born, when "we" pulled out some miracle win. Queenan tallies the time he has spent watching sports and figures those years were not truly wasted: "It is my belief," he says, "that without sports, the average man would have no emotional life whatsoever." In this hilarious and strangely erudite book, Queenan doesn't overwrite his subject-for a diehard fan knows what to do when the buzzer sounds: go home.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From AudioFile
Joe Queenan, a long suffering Philadelphia sports fan, tries to explain why so many people spend so much time loyally rooting for perennial losers, like the Philadelphia Phillies and Eagles, the Chicago Cubs, and others. Although the hypothesis is interesting, the title fails to answer the questions it poses. Instead, the book meanders, creating the impression that Queenan is unsure whether he is writing pop psychology, humor, or a quasi-autobiography. Queenan's performance does not help. He speaks in a monotone and lacks the passion and frustration that are the trademarks of Philadelphia fans. TRUE BELIEVERS needs more focus, as does its narration. D.J.S. © AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Customer Reviews

Another Queenan Triumph...
I love Joe Queenan's books, this the fourth of his that I have read. He is usually hilarious and always on the mark. This book lacks (and that is not a bad thing) has usual trademark razor wit that causes bleeding when touched. However, he goes after fair weather fans and Yankee fans quite well. With the exception the extended chapter on Notre Dame (I still hate Notre Dame and can't enjoy even Queenan's wise commentary), the book is terrific. Parts are moving. Queenan's life, as many of ours have, been shaped by sports. Friendships, family, etc. The book is funny; but it also honest and a bit moving. The end, taking place at Wrigley Field (of course) may move you to tears. Great stuff.

Queenan�s heart in the right place
"True Believers" is a fairly short book, but it took me a few weeks to get through it. This is not a reflection on the quality of author Joe Queenan's writing but on the subject matter.

Sports itself, as Queenan insistently and correctly reminds us, is more than "just a game", contrary to what some anti-sports bluenoses think. "How could you possibly compare the fate of the rain forest to the fate of the Philadelphia 76ers?" Queenan demands of his therapist. "You need to get your priorities straight." And he means it too, and rightly so.

But while a proper treatment of the games themselves often requires volumes of material, sports FANDOM is a fairly lightweight topic scarcely worth the 200-plus pages of space that Queenan devotes to it. I got through the book by treating it as a series of disjointed articles, rather than as a number of points comprising an overall theme.

And yet Queenan scores so many bulls-eyes through his observations about the art and practice of sports fandom that it's impossible for me to withhold praise for his effort.

Foremost among his welcome observations is that it's OK to hate. You can't love a team or a specific athlete without being able to hate the object of your adoration. It's OK to hate the team that you root for, and the players on that team, if you feel that they've betrayed you. In fact, this hatred can be of the most extreme and virulent quality as long as it's never actualized.

Queenan deplores fan violence and in the same breath goes on to state, "But to deny that one has ever seriously contemplated killing the place kicker is to deny one's own humanity. A fan who hasn't at least thought about killing the place kicker is really no fan at all."

YES! Thank you, Joe Queenan, for giving me the freedom to fantasize about committing mayhem on pig-headed and fastball-stubborn Felix Rodriguez and namby-pamby lisping doughboy Tim Worrell, the two San Francisco Giant relief pitchers who smugly and treacherously snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in the 2002 World Series, ROBBING the Giants and their fans of the first world championship in the team's West Coast history.

In fact, Rodriguez and Worrell would both repeat this perfidy in the 2003 Division Championship against the Florida Marlins. Is there an entrance to hell gaping widely enough to admit them?

For that matter, one may properly allow one's passion for sports to interfere with his relationship with God, as well. Queenan is frank in acknowledging that he has never forgiven God for allowing the Philadelphia Phillies to choke away the 1964 pennant. Why should I forgive God for the 2002 World Series? I watched it with my 77 year-old father, who will probably never have another chance to see the Giants win a world championship.

Queenan's point is that it is the very uniqueness of the skills possessed by the world's best athletes - far more distinctive than those possessed by other professionals - that give the games an epic quality that overshadows that which we call "real life". He estimates that there about 5,000 athletes in the world that are the subject of intense scrutiny - think of how small this number is in comparison to the numbers of doctors, lawyers, teachers, and social workers who are doing the so-called important work.

After paying respect to family, money and career, Queenan ruefully observes, "But it's hard to relate to them viscerally. No matter how hard you try, you're never going to find 65,000 complete strangers willing to stand in subzero temperatures cheering for your bank statement."

Small wonder that we venerate the athletes as gods and that they look down upon us as subjects. In turn, it's equally small wonder that we curse them when they fail us.

Queenan also gives us an interesting chapter on the intensity of the British football fan. And by the time I finished reading his piece on the Notre Dame mystique, a chapter entitled "Fans Who See Green", I wished that I had been born Irish and Catholic.

My main criticism of the book, other than its length, is that too much of it reads like an instructional manual. Queenan devotes too much time to explaining how-to and how-NOT-to follow sports. But he's too dogmatic. Both the sports fan's paradise and the sports fan's purgatory have many mansions, and each fan must follow his own path. It's rank Pharisaism for Queenan to insist that his is the only way.

But the release of a book on "True Believers", on fans who love too much regardless of how they are rewarded, was timed perfectly, in light of the recent failures of both the Boston Red Sox and the Chicago Cubs, baseball's perennial also-rans with ever-loyal fan bases, to make it to the World Series. Both teams found a way to blow late-inning leads in the deciding games.

How many Red Sox fans; how many Cub fans, Viking fans, Saints fans, Falcons fans, Vancouver Canuck fans etc. will die of old age waiting for the prize that never comes? How many have died already? Queenan pays proper homage both to the fans who stick around for more punishment and to those who break the cycle of hope and letdown, as one would break a drug habit, by giving up on their team. Chapter 9 of this book is entitled "Fans Who Walk Away".

And as I finish the book, I am still left wondering which direction I am going to take with the San Francisco Giants.

A quick, dead-on read
Joe knows the suffering that goes along with loving the sometimes unlovable loser teams that most of us follow. He also has some pointed attacks at the bandwagon jumpers that should satisfy all who, like me, have those friends who check the box scores before declaring their allegiances. A great gift for even those moderately interested in sports and a great addition to any personal library.