Kevin, I did not know that about Philadelphia. Interesting. I am now really fascinated to see what Chip Kelly does there, especially what he will do, or not do, with Michael Vick...

GT,

Fair Weather fans? What’s that?

We still wore the colors during that near decade of bottom feeding NFL performance where our team consistently earned low first round draft choices.

Who else do you know that stood the same test of time? Who else can you name right now off the top of your head who so diligently followed a sports franchise with such a dismal winning record while one entire decade passes by your eyes and is removed from our lifespan?

I’ve met fans of other teams, on occasion a “true faithful” of some perennial pathetic team, still faithfully wearing the colors.

But our group? Unheard of, really, if you stop and think about it. There’s no one who can compare to us. The 49er followers. The Loyal and Noble Devotees of an idea. The notion of Greatness. That it can be achieved. That on Earth mortal greatness achieved by flawed men could stand the test of the ages and be forever immortalized. After all of us are long gone there will still be the legends. People will still talk about the greatness of ages past. The 49ers. An era existed where such greatness could occur. Greatness personified. It will always be and nobody can take that away from them or from us.


Truly stirring rhetoric. It made me think of this:

[link= Do It!!!!![/link]

It also made me remember a period, from around 1996 to around 2006 when I used to got to a now-defunct Manhattan sports bar to watch 49ers games. This habit began accidentally one Sunday afternoon when I was returning from a flea market in early fall and passed a bar whose windows were open to the street and where a 49ers-Cowboys game was about to start. I decided to stop in and watch the action, intrigued by the large and roughly equal number of Dallas and SF fans in the room. It was an exhilarating experience. A few years later many of the crowd at that bar had migrated to another a few blocks away. Not the most roughneck place I've been in, but definitely the kind of joint where you had to be careful how you came across, otherwise there might be some argie-bargie, which I witnessed on a few occasions. Somehow I liked it. Season followed season and the 49ers kept falling short, and then, after the departures of Mariucci and Garcia, falling and not getting back up again. The shirt- and cap-wearing 49ers fans - around 15 of them when I first started going, dwindled to just two. Me, and a dude from Harlem named DeKwan or DK, who wore a Garrison Hearst shirt and was built about the same dimensions. After a while even DK wasn't showing up. But every week, no matter what, a group of three other large dudes from Harlem, with whom DK was on friendly terms, were there. One of them had the kind of loud, provocative personalities that can dominate barrooms and intimidate everyone in them. He and his friends were Cowboys fans - they had been at that first game I saw in the other bar - and when they did well this guy would be standing on his stool yelling and swinging a terrible towel over his head and talking the dozens at anyone who caught his eye. I played it cool and kept my eyes on my Niners. Then one afternoon, I forget the circumstances, but I think I got a little excited about a 49ers offensive play and made a noise about it, prompting someone in the bar to make the kind of derisively pitying comment about the Niners that was so common in those days. To my surprise, this apparently psychotic Dallas fan, whose name I'd shortly learn was Bryan, stood up and talked this guy down. He turned to me and told the bar that I was the only true faithful 49ers fan who ever came there, week in and out, no matter how bad the team was. And he called me over to join him and his pals and bought me a beer. I honestly think a lot of those patrons were shocked - in New York where people are not easily shocked, they all respected this guy. Those three dudes turned out to be great people, and friends - an IT entrepreneur, a screenwriter and a teacher. And they had been watching, and they knew that I was the only 49ers fan left from the glory days who still showed up to cheer the team in the Dark Ages. It felt rather excellent, and continued to feel excellent every time I walked into the bar and joined their party. About five years ago I swore off sports bars - bars in general in fact. But I do miss that aspect of fandom where you have to represent your tribe. Now, with the team so close to glory again, I feel as though there's no reason to strut. They'll know, they'll all know, if the 49ers win again.

GO NINERS!Q