The Unholy Merging of Coffe Mugs, Baseball and You

Remember the movie The Fan with Robert DeNiro and Wesley Snipes, the one where an obsessive fan stalks and ultimately interferes in the life of his beloved sports idol, only to manipulate him into performing to his platonically idealistic expectations while holding family and loved ones hostage?

Neither do I.

But apparently sports merchandising is beginning to take cues from this film, offering fans new opportunities to indulge in their obsession-over a cup of coffee, anyway.

The MLB is now offering photo products for all of its franchises ranging from calendars and coffee mugs, to buttons and posters. Though I have nothing against indulging a fantasy or associating yourself with a "brand," there was a time that sports franchises were about, uh, competing in, like, sports or something, and weren't a "lifestyle." Call me a purist or *cough* a fair-weather fan, but I prefer to watch my teams when they are competing, and more importantly winning, which typically involves buying tickets to see them from up in the nosebleeds with the other plebeians.

Fortunately, some online sports ticket sites do give me recourse to the usual ritual of back-alley hand-shake exchanges for overpriced, sometimes counterfeit scalped tickets. And hey, a bunch of them are even reviewed here.

But given the cost of tickets these days, maybe watching the game while sipping cocoa from my favorite sports team photo mug might be the better choice after all.

You can see all our reviews for Sports Ticket, Concert Ticket and Theater Ticket sites, or you can get some front-row seats at these other blog posts:

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