Image Credit: Kevin Liles-USA TODAY Sports
Remember when Dom Brown was hitting home runs every night and he was the greatest star Philadelphia had ever seen and we all loved him?
Those days are apparently over. Yesterday, Brown did the worst thing that an athlete can do in the eyes of Philly fans: He showed his support for the Dallas Cowboys on Twitter:
Yeah, that didn’t go over so well with most Phillies fans. Keep in mind that the typical Philadelphia sports fan is not exactly rational when it comes to the Cowboys. I suspect that many people would say that taking PEDs is better than cheering for the Cowboys.
Here are some of the more well thought-out responses to Brown’s tweet:
@dom9brown Is this forreal ure a phillie dude that's a joke ure an idiot!
— chris mac (@young_blood88) October 20, 2013
@dom9brown u blow at baseball ur not even a real Philly player
— Luke Stansfield (@Luke_StansNFL) October 20, 2013
Obviously, the 140-character thoughts of a few fans does not completely represent the mindset of the region. But people are a bit upset about this. In Philadelphia, fans expect athletes to support the city’s other teams. Brown should be hanging out on party buses with Shady McCoy, not decking himself out in Cowboys gear.
That said, it seems unwise for fans to alienate the Phillies’ brightest young star. Cursing a guy out because of his choice of football teams won’t exactly inspire him to take a hometown discount during the next set of contract negotiations. (If you’d like to point out that it’s probably a moot point since Brown’s agent is Scott Boras, go right ahead.)
For his part, Brown should have realized what kind of reaction he’d receive. I realize that professional athletes aren’t the most self-aware group of people, but at no point did he wonder, “Will I be alienating my fanbase?” This morning, Brown tweeted that “Philly doesn’t love me,” but that tweet has been deleted. I guess belated self-awareness is better than none.
I was going to defend Brown by saying that he grew up as a Cowboys fan, but that’s really no excuse. He grew up in Florida, and went to high school in Georgia, and both of those areas are a decent ways away from the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex.
So why is Brown a Cowboys fan? He was probably just starting to follow pro football as the Cowboys were enjoying their Troy Aikman/Emmitt Smith-fueled run of success. In other words, young Dom Brown was a little bandwagon jumper. To his credit, he’s stuck with the team even though they’ve been lousy throughout most of his tenure as a football fan.
In the end, this will likely all be forgotten as soon as the 2014 season begins and Brown resumes hitting baseballs into the seats. I just hope that when the Eagles travel to Dallas later this year, Brown chooses to keep his support a little more private.