The “Mexican” Fast Food Intervention

Posted by on Wednesday, December 2, 2009 3 Comments

But then I check Twitter and see several people in my feed making fun of the Hornets bench for trying, and man, that got me fired up. “If they had played that hard the whole game they wouldn’t have been down 20!” “Lakers fans shouldn’t be embarrassed because they cheer louder for tacos than the game– the Hornets should be embarrassed for losing!” Etc. One of these people was an ESPN writer, which is kind of inexplicable to me.

You people did notice that this wasn’t exactly the lineup that lost the game? The Hornets had three guards out there under 6-4, and were playing 6-9 Darius Songaila at center. I mean, that’s not exactly an NBA lineup. That’s serious small ball, and they were pushing the pace.

via This is Madness: Rookies and Tacos | Hornets Hype.

TickTock6 with her usual charm makes several good points about this, not the least of which is this. If you’re a good fan, you know, smart fan, cheer hard, come early, stay to the end, celebrate the good times, mourn the bad times, then you need to tell your fellow fans. Don’t cheer or boo for food promotions. Cheer for a good performance. Boo a poor one or at the opponent. This Taco/Chalupa nonsense must end.

I’m always told “Well, yeah, a lot of the Staples crowd are idiots but the good fans are great!” So I’m talking to all twelve of you. Tell your fellow associates to cheer for a great team kicking the crap out of the other one. Hey, it’s supposed to be fun, I get that, so enjoy the tacos if you’d like. It’s okay to even root for them as a side-bonus, or to try and get the team to hold them if they’re at 99. That’s fine. But don’t boo the other team trying to get better just because it may cost you more junk food. I’m not just talking to Lakers fans, here. If your team has a promotion, let’s treat it as a side thing, and not the goal at the end of a game. Be a good fan, and set a good example for not being a complete douchebag.

Finally… YOU LIVE IN CALIFORNIA! You have excellent Mexican food at every turn! Do you understand the lengths and risks I must endure to find good Mexican in Kansas City, after living in Austin, Texas for four years? They call Queso “Cheese Sauce” for God’s sake!  Go find yourself a real taqueria! It’s Jack-In-The-Box for Chrissake!

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About Matt Moore: Matt Moore is a Senior NBA Blogger for CBSSports.com's Eye on Basketball blog, weekend editor of Pro Basketball Talk on NBCSports.com, and co-editor of Voice on the Floor. He lives in Kansas City due to an unbelievably complex set of circumstances and enjoys mid-90's pop rock, long walks on the beach and the novels of Tim Sandlin.

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danicalifornia

This is hilarious, people who weren't there even having an opinion. I was at that game, and once it became clear that the Hornets were intentionally trying to keep us from our Tacos, the more we wanted the coupons for the gross inedible crap Jack tries to pass off as Tacos. It really wasn't about the tacos, it was about keeping the Hornets under 100. In my section anyway, we were mock cheering and making fun of ourselves and the promotion. Heck, we were one of the last to leave the Staples Center and the ushers were handing out handfuls of the coupons because so many people didn't really want them.

What I won't fault you for commenting on is how LA fans arrive late and leave early. The Staples Center was half empty by the time Tacos even became an issue. I was on of the first there an last to leave. So lame.

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ticktock6

If that Thornton (I think) three had stayed down it would have been a 6 pt game with timeouts left. The players and coaching staff shouldn't be preparing their rookies and young guys for that game situation? Sure they shouldn't. It's so unprofessional.

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WildYams

The best point you made here is the last one. I lived in Colorado for a few years a long time ago and I swore to myself that if I ever moved back to LA (which I did) that I would never eat Taco Bell or any of that other crappy fast food Mexican food again, and I haven't. If I want tacos, I'm going to the sketchy taco stand in the bad neighborhood where the good Mexican food really is!

I do agree that the Laker fans cheering for the free tacos are totally ridiculous. It's a dollar's worth of crappy food, for god's sake! A friend of mine has season tickets and he told me that he gives all his taco coupons to homeless guys when they ask him for change, and that seems to me like a good way to use them.

That said, it really was silly for the Hornets to be intentionally fouling over and over at the end of the game just so they could try to get the ball back and score more than 100 points. The fans may be acting like idiots, but they're fans, that's what they do. The players and coaching staff of the teams actually playing, however, should have more respect for the game. Committing intentional fouls when they're down double digits in a regular season game with less than 10 seconds to play is just absurd. You would think they'd just want to get the hell out of there. They wouldn't have wanted the Lakers to run up the score if there was some promotion like if the team scored 120 points then the fans would get free tacos, so why engage in that sort of thing themselves?

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