Hell Hath No Wrath Like That of a Homer’s

By Bethlehem Shoals
In a column yesterday, I made the bold, deliberately provocative prediction that Mike Brown would be fired. I had some sloppy language in there that belied my dislike of Brown, but straightened that out in the comments section.
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Now, I’ve caught some self-righteous hell from the Cavs-flavored corners of blogdom. This made my morning kind of icky, but it did get me thinking about the nature of hometown fans, or homer-ism, or whatever you want to call it. And I think I’m a better person for it.
First, I’ll admit: You know your team better than I do. Shanoff and I have talked extensively about the difference between specializing in a sport (me and the NBA) versus his generalist’s approach. I’ve got news for my readers: I’m an NBA generalist. I’m sorry that I’ve decided to try and follow every team some, rather than one exclusively.
What really gets me, though, is the Cavs fans leaping to defend their coach. I’m really supposed to think this is objective talk? The outsider scoffing at your team isn’t a threat, it’s the ying to your subjective yang. The truth is probably somewhere in between the two.
You can call me an idiot, or uninformed. To me, though, homers know too much, and can convince themselves of anything involving their team. They might do well to, for once, listen to how someone on the outside sees the situation. It may not be what they want to hear, but there’s also a reason why homers have a built-in credibility problem.↵