26 January 2007

The ONLY joy of being in the media during Hurricane Katrina is that I've made some friends. One of them is a guy named Morgan Stewart who works for Entergy--the big utility company down there.

He sends me emails every now and then and today's took the cake. It's an article written by one of his friends about what it was like to be a Saints fan at this past weekend's NFC championship game at Chicago.

The photo says it all.

I planned to root for Chicago against the Colts in the Super Bowl. (Chicago is one of my favorite cities...of course I rooted for the Saints to go all the way.) But I have to say--I hope Peyton (a NOLA native) and the boys WHOOOP the Bears' asses.

Here's the story:


Chicago Bears: Awful Winners

By Mike Bayham

DANTE’S INFERNO (CHICAGO)- The stands at Soldier Field Sunday afternoon would have been a paradise for Karl Marx as there was no evidence of class to be found anywhere in the stadium.

Going into the NFC championship game, I planned on being the subject of many, many barbs. And some of them were amusing, like one fan’s cry for some more “fumba-laya” in response to the Saints’ inability to hold on to the ball in the first half.

But it wasn’t long before things got “battery in the snowball” ugly, a reference to Bears fans’ treatment of Saints fans in the 1991 wild-card playoff.

Take for example one fan sporting a bear mask on his head and a placard strapped to his shoulders that read: “Bears finishing what Katrina started”.

Wanting to capture that scene so the folks back home can have an idea of what the traveling Black and Gold faithful had to endure, I turned my Saints cap around while sporting a grin and asked to take his picture. He giddily obliged though his smile disappeared when I repositioned my hat so the fleur-de-lis faced him after his public obnoxiousness was digitally cataloged.

That picture is posted at myspace (www.myspace.com/mbayham) and I encourage you to send it around. If we’re lucky (and he’s not) it might very well end up in the hands of his employer.

Things got even uglier upon finding my eBay acquired seat when a drunkard in front kept staring at me, hurling profanities and throwing his hands only inches from my face.

It’s been 16 years since I last threw a punch at anyone in self-defense and retaliation on my part would have meant a beat down by him, his cohorts and others wearing blue and orange clothing that don’t need much of an excuse to attack a visiting team’s fans.

So I summoned the strength of those other saints and just endured it, knowing that the first time he made contact I was going to start swinging away regardless of the consequences. Needless to say when Reggie Bush made his spectacular score, the cold war taking place in section 324, rows 15 and 16 began to teeter on going hot.

Shortly thereafter, the hothead asked if I got flooded out from Hurricane Katrina. Having been asked this question dozens of times on previous trips outside of New Orleans, I instinctively replied my house went under 11 feet of water but I had evacuated beforehand, to which this clown shot back, “too bad you didn’t drown.”

I along with many other Saints fans hit the exits at the start of the fourth quarter figuring that the beating on the field was enough without being assaulted in the stands. But the hostile hospitality did not end with the game.

As I trudged across the tundra towards the elevated train station I witnessed a Bears fan throwing his beer at a New Orleans television reporter. A day later while riding an escalator from the train area I was being cursed at by someone sporting a Bears cap going down in the opposite direction.

If this is how Bears fans handle victory, then I don’t doubt that myself and others who “dared” cheer for their team would have had left some blood on the Chicago snow.

Chicago is one of America’s great cities in architecture, food, music, theater and industry. It’s also an outstanding museum city, only nosed out by Washington, DC as the best in this area. However, there’s no excuse for people visiting the city for a sporting event to be sneered at or have the collective misfortune of their home area mocked.

The Bears fans have proven themselves to be the most repugnant sports fans this side of England’s soccer hooligans. ATL Dirty Birds and Philly’s arrogant Eagles fans have nothing on these animals.

I’ve visited Chicago four times now and would be happy to never set foot nor spend another red cent in it ever again.

What galls me the most is how the Chicago Bears and the media have been whining about Reggie Bush’s taunt.

Let’s see here: a professional athlete does a flip in the endzone after executing a spectacular play versus an unruly mob making fun of the catastrophe that killed over a thousand people and made homeless in excess of a quarter of a million.

I’ll be sure to light a candle for Brian Urlacher the next time I go to church.

Let’s hope that New Orleans-native Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts can settle the score for us in the big game in two weeks since the Chicago Bears don’t need another Super Bowl trophy as much as their fans need to get some class.