With the World Series tied 2-2 and headed into a pivotal Game 5 on Monday night, it's time to take a quick look at one of the more prescient Twitter accounts in baseball.
The "Baseball's Best Fans" account isn't new, but its clever conceit is more relevant than ever with the St. Louis Cardinals two wins away from a World Series title.
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The account's premise is simple. At some point over the past several decades, Cardinals supporters anointed themselves the "best fans in baseball," citing reasons from unwavering loyalty to reverence for the game and respect for opponents.
If the Internet has taught us one thing, however, it's that evil lurks in all forms. If the Internet has taught us a second thing, it's that talk is cheap. "Baseball's Best Fans" recalls both truisms to poke a little fun at Cardinals supporters' surfeit of self-regard by finding the very worst tweets from St. Louis fans.
Slurs, epithets, tasteless jokes, death threats -- they're all represented. You can visit the @BestFansStLouis Twitter profile for a full dose, but here are just a few milder examples from the past few days:
Deleted MT "@CoryD315: Boston fan: "It's a marathon, not a sprint." Annnnndddd how'd that last Boston Marathon work out for ya? #TooSoon"— Baseball's Best Fans (@BestFansStLouis) October 28, 2013
Gomes must die. I'm on my way to St. Louis to kill him.— Colton Snell (@Colton_L_Snell) October 28, 2013
fuxk boston there a bunch of pussies— Brandon Hale (@_brandonhale) October 27, 2013
Does this mean Cardinals fans are exceptionally horrible? Probably not. If you scraped the dregs of Twitter for the worst supporters of any other sports team, you would likely turn up similar results.
Does it mean Cardinals fans aren't, in fact, the "best in baseball," as they claim? Perhaps that's true. But most of all, this account is just a timely reminder that even the greatest fan bases have plenty of bad apples -- and on social media, those bad apples are more visible than ever.
BONUS: Inside One Fan's Ultimate Man Cave
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