Here's the thing about Cardinals fans

If they were really the best fans in baseball, they would hate you and your team with the heat of a thousand metaphorical suns. But they don’t. A lot of Cardinals fans seem to be genuinely caring people, which makes them all the more intolerable. The worst ones are quick to point out that they are also rooting for your team, as if Major League Baseball games are, in part, an insincerity contest. Cardinals fans can be so passive-aggressive – not unlike parents at a youth soccer match, always finding a way to mention that their kid would have scored another goal (probably) if not for the bad call in the second period. Not that they were keeping score. And they really thought your kid played a good game too.

            Cardinals fans do have a healthy and open disdain for the Cubs – but, really, does anyone think they deserve a fucking medal for that? They remind me of Nebraska football fans and Kansas basketball fans. Most of them would find nice things to say about Ebola while voting to wipe several West African countries off the map in the name of science.

            The best fans in baseball don’t get Woody Allen movies. They post videos of cute puppies and quote clichés from vapid self-help gurus on Facebook. They take vacations to Mexico during the off-season and spend the entire trip sipping pre-mixed margaritas within the confines of a well-guarded American resort.

            What many Cardinals fans won’t tell you (and often don’t realize themselves) is that they secretly view you as a sub-class of people who are missing limbs or were born without eyes. They feel sorry for you. You need their charity. You need some of their WASPish good fortune to rub off on you. Just maybe you will have a conversion to their faith, and be better off for it. You might change colors. You might get your life together. You might, someday, be miraculously cured and drive away in a beautiful SUV.

            Meanwhile, the best fans in baseball pack that shitty stadium like Mormons at a huge Amway convention. If they win a baseball game, it is a joyous occasion to celebrate what was meant to be again. If they lose, they always have an excuse (signed, Eckstein’s mother). God must have had a particular emergency that day. Either way, it’s OK. Cardinals fans are happy if you get to enjoy a moment – as long as you realize it was only a fluke.

P.S. Deadspin got here before me.