I Respect The Hell Out Of That O's Fan Who Refused To Watch A-Rod's At Bats Last Night

 “I don’t respect him,” said Rowe, a 56-year-old who serves on the Caroline County board of education. “He doesn’t deserve to be watched. Absolutely not, I’m sorry. You know, and now they got all this about his tying Willie Mays’s record and the $6 million, and he has the audacity to think that he should be paid. I’m sorry. I don’t respect the guy. Not one bit.”   – Orioles Superfan Tolbert Rowe

So Portnoy blogged this O’s fan who was giving A-Rod a world-class shun job last night and predictably called him a hardo. He’s not wrong. The guy is a complete and total hardo who just wanted everyone’s eyeballs on him.

But I love this guy anyway. Why? Because he’s hardly any different than any of us. He’s just a passionate sports fan who only sees what he chooses to open his eyes for. We’re all guilty of it. Hell, it was what this website was built upon. It’s why the talk over on Boston yesterday was about an innocuous #5 t-shirt, and not the hideous sweatshirt-tied-around-the-waist look Tom Brady had on. Or the fact that he threw a fucking cricket pitch to David Ortiz. It’s also why throwing for 4,000 yards in a season definitely isn’t part of the criteria that makes an “elite” QB and sky’s out/thighs out was all the rage last summer. And it’s why Mr. Rowe here has never heard of Jay Gibbons, Larry Bigbie, Rafael Palmeiro, Brady Anderson, or Nelson Cruz. “A-rod is scum and I refuse to watch, but I’ve been buying MLB season tickets since Nam.” Hilarious. That’s just a level of delirium I can get behind. So hats off to you Tolbert Rowe. Keep doing you bro.

PS: I would’ve blogged that pic last night, but I didn’t want to give the nerd who took the picture any pub after he went all bitchboy on Adam Jones and took a shot at the internet’s finest. I’ve since changed my mind. Here’s your pub bud!