Think Tank

Today is not a good day to be a Diamondbacks fan.

Forget the game one loss in the National League Championship series. Forget the controversial call by second base umpire, Larry Vanover. The Colorado Rockies played a whale of a game, and no call by any umpire was going to change that.

Maligned for a week and a half by the national and local press for not selling out fast enough for their tastes, Diamondbacks fans finally showed some passion for what happened on the field. Unfortunately for all concerned, some fans took things a little too far last night.

Now, far be it from me to tell another human being how to conduct himself. I'm all about personal responsibility, although I have no problem expressing my opinion on the behavior of others. As a cynic, it is my job to point out such things, however hypocritical it may seem. (I am not above assaulting myself for infractions of my own standards.)

Some fans at the ball park absolutely need a thrashing for what transpired. For goodness sake - throwing BEER AND WATER BOTTLES onto the playing field? Yes, fans were upset about a controversial call that turned a hard slide into second by Justin Upton into an automatic double play that didn't advance the runner, Chris Snyder, to third. It was a rally killer, to be sure, but it is at times like that when fans need to think about where they are and what they are doing, and to get behind their team, not handicap them.

The Diamondbacks were down four runs, anyway, so there is no reason to think that an umpire cost us a chance to come back late. Stephen Drew, as much of a fan of him that I am, blew it by swinging at the first pitch with the bases loaded. The D-Backs have done a lot of their damage all season with two outs, so why ostracize a man who actually put the team into a position to do just that?

Well, that's the psychology of sports in action.

As I mentioned earlier, Diamondback fans have had a rough ten days. We had to sit through the godawful, shamefully biased commentary by Dick Stockton and Ron Darling during the team's sweep of the Cubs. The broadcast director had a nice hand in the action, too, making sure that the entire country saw every Cubs fan in attendance at our home park. The bottom line was that Cubs fans are among the best in baseball, while Diamondback fans are fair weather front runners who wouldn't know how to conduct themselves at a game without the assistance of the Jumbotron.

Almost in unison, we cried foul. "East coast bias!"

Even after the team completed the sweep, the attention still lay on the difference between the teams' fan bases. But the NLCS was supposed to change things. Suddenly, we were in a big series against a team in the same boat as our team. A bunch of young unknowns who have no business being there (despite their combined 180 regular season wins). Finally, we could get past all the fan talk and focus on two great stories in baseball. That is, until the Rockies sold out before we did. Still, it should not have been an issue, according to team president, Derrick Hall.

This is traditionally a late-buying fan base. Tomorrow we are just a few thousand shy, so should sell out for it, too. Our crowds really should not have been a focus of the national media. This fan base is extremely supportive, and though we had several seats open this week, we were confident in our fans.

Now everyone who took the time to defend Arizona fans on blogs, message boards, and in e-mail have to suffer the effects of a self-fulfilling prophecy. They said we were bad fans, and a few (presumably) drunk idiots gave the whole country reason to believe that we are the worst fans in professional sports, and there is nothing we can do about it. Here's why . . .

Due to the disproportionate coverage of "loyal" Cub fans and "disloyal" Diamondback fans, the national media has made evidence to the contrary (that is, there are more "good" D-Back fans than "bad") irrelevant. The general population is primed to believe anything negative said about us. This is known as the "availability heuristic." This phenomenon of the human mind suggests that we are more likely to make judgements about a person or situation based on the information that is most readily available to us. Id est, if there are a lot of articles and images portraying Diamondback fans as disloyal front runners, then people are going to assume that it is true.

No amount of information that indicates otherwise is sufficient to counter this effect due to another neat little phenomenon known as "confirmation bias." That is to say, we tend to seek out information that supports our point of view while discarding any information that contradicts that perspective. Regardless how many images we see of fans cheering their team passionately, a person arguing against us will only remember things like beer bottles thrown onto the field of play.

This effect enables a person to avoid the uncomfortable feeling of dissonance that freezes our brains when our stern beliefs are challenged. We have been primed to believe one thing, and anything that shows our beliefs to be false causes us to react irrationally, going so far as to dismiss such contradictory information (ironically enough) as but one example that does not change the overall perception created by the availability heuristic.

Moreover, people have a tendency to attribute another person's behavior to flaws in that person ("Stop making excuses why you guys aren't sold out!"), rather than seeking to understand the circumstances surrounding the behavior in question. This is known as the "fundamental attribution error." When explaining the behavior of others, it is much easier to assume that the other person is flawed in such a way that makes them fundamentally inferior to us rather than understanding their situation (there are myriad reasons for not selling out games, and they are all valid). Oddly enough, it is also a person's tendency to allow situations and circumstance to explain his own behavior. Egocentric thinking at its finest (though I simply call it hypocrisy).

Opposing fans are not the only people at the mercy of these psychological phenomena.

Interestingly enough, home field advantage can be both a blessing and a curse. Umpires and officials are human, subject to the same rules of behavior as the rest of us. Did anyone else notice Tim McClelland's expanded strike zone after the incident? "Self-verification theory" explains this event nicely. The fans boo the home plate umpire incessantly, so the tendency is to act in accordance to that behavior. Basically, we act the way people expect us to act. This is often confused with having a stubborn ego, but the reality is that it is a difficult phenomenon to overcome. If the fans support the officiating, the officials are more likely to give the benefit of calls to the home team. However, if the official feels that he is being "attacked," the calls will tend to favor the visiting team. (This is why Utah is such a difficult place for many NBA teams to play.)

Ultimately, there is nothing an Arizona fan can immediately do to repair the damage that has been done by a few lousy individuals. There is no spontaneous fix. The "ultimate attribution error" is in effect. The assumption is that, if some fans are barbaric Romans throwing rocks into the Gladiatorial arena, then they all must be barbaric Romans. We cease to be mere "fans." We are now "bad fans."

Guess what, folks -- perception is reality in this world. We have been painted by the media as dispassionate, ignorant fans, and the actions of a few have now cemented that perception. We had a chance to overcome all the bad press, but a few moronic individuals just could not control themselves, and now we all have to pay for their indiscretions. I don't like it, and no one really should.

The only thing we can do now is to be more cognizant of our behavior. Think before we act and speak, aware of the fact that changing a person's mind is near impossible without the right tools and the right amount of time. Of course, it would help if our local boys (Dan Bickley, Nick Piecoro, Bob Young, et al) took the time to present as many examples of positive fan behavior as possible, fighting the urge to fall into the trap of perpetuating myths started by an irresponsible media and even more irresponsible fans.

Granted, these journalists are as well subject to these same rules of human psychology, so we have to rely on their strengths as individuals to admit fault first.

As for the rest of us, it will be in our best interest to remain as non-combative as humanly possible. Find examples of positive fan behavior, and shove those examples down their throats. They can't ignore facts forever.

As I said earlier, it is near impossible - not completely impossible. We have to be aware of how we function as people, and work around that. If we have the intelligence to recognize these patterns, then we have the ability to counteract them.

We can start by not throwing beer bottles onto the field.

Information on the terms used can be found here.