I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a more exciting swing live than on Sunday when Jim Thome hit his 500th home run – a walk-off, to boot – that gave the White Sox a 9-7 victory against the visiting Angels.

I admit, I cheered as loud as anyone else in that stadium honoring the achievements of the classy veteran. But in reality, Jim Thome has hit only 70 home runs with the White Sox, and 41 against them. So after bowing my head and yelling “we’re not worthy” for a couple of minutes, my mind began to wander back to June 28 when Frank Thomas hit his 500th home run for the Toronto Blue Jays.

Thomas never had the opportunity to receive such an ovation from the White Sox even though he helped lead the team to three playoff appearances, was named AL MVP twice and hit 448 home runs during his 16-season career with the White Sox.

As I watched Bobby Jenks and Jermaine Dye hoist Thome onto their shoulders, I began to feel sad. I would have much rather celebrated with Frank Thomas than with Jim Thome. Thome to me is just a big name acquisition; Frank Thomas was a White Sox.

It just seems like there is a lot of blind loyalty that goes into being a sports fan sometimes. Players come and go so quickly that it seems as sports fans we worship a city, a stadium, a jersey or a logo a lot more than the players who actually play the game, and that just seems wrong to me.

I was watching the most overrated spectacle in sports this weekend, the Yankees versus the Red Sox. Now, of course, every sports fan has had it drilled into his head that the Red Sox and Yankees is the best rivalry in all of sports. I mean, after watching the first 18 games they play against each other, is it really all that exciting to watch them play anymore? But beyond that, if this were such a great rivalry, wouldn’t the players actually care? For me, eating a burrito from La Bamba makes me want to puke, and I would imagine for members of the Red Sox the very thought of wearing Yankee pinstripes might make them feel the same way.

It’s simply not true though. As much as a Boston or New York fan may wish it so, their players don’t care who they’re playing for as long as they get their paycheck.

Take Johnny Damon. Damon was a well-liked man in Boston. And though he had certainly already done some traveling around the league, I have heard many a Boston fan call him “wicked awesome,” so I knew that when he came to the plate for the Yankees this past weekend you’d see the conflict in his face. Should he strike out on purpose? Should he make a crucial error on the base paths to help his old team?

No, of course not. When Damon struck out he was mad. He wanted to beat the Red Sox. He didn’t care that he had played four seasons for the team or that he had won a World Series with them. He wanted to get a hit.

While I think every fan likes to believe that an athlete is playing to help out his team, and a player might even say he is playing to help his team, his true motive is to play as well as he can as an individual so that he can make a killing on his next contract.

I just find it very interesting that fans almost always stick with their teams rather than their favorite players.

The players are the ones who make the spectacular catch; they’re the ones that make you jump for joy.

Frank Thomas gave me these emotions throughout my childhood, and as much as I enjoyed watching Jim Thome hit a very impressive milestone, I wish Thomas was the one I saw.

Kevin Spitz is a senior in Engineering. He can be reached at [email protected].