5 Steps of LSB FanPost Grief...A User's Guide

A RangerFloppy PSA, apologies for the length:

The Rangers are in 1st place in the West, have the best record this far into a season since Adam Hydzu was on the 40 man, and have exhibited a combination of offense, defense and pitching which has not been displayed in the past decade of Rangers baseball. Their surprise performance, combined with the Mavs being down 2-0 to the Nuggets and the Cowboys being off the radar, has inspired some fair weather fans to drink the kool-aid that is Ranger Fandom. Let me be the first to welcome you all with open arms. And let me also tell you that if you are going to post on this site, make sure it is good (and I'm keeping my chubby fingers crossed right now that this post will be), because if it isn't you will be booed off the stage.

People are not polite here, people will not give you the benefit of the doubt, people will flat out hammer your self esteem until you are left a dejected bumbling mess in front of your monitor. As a Ranger Fan we have our established higher powers, the Newberg, the AJM, the Grant, the Brain Eating Zombie, among many other outstanding writers, reporters, and fundamental fans of this organization. That being said, if you are about to reel off your first FanPost, you are not one of them. While some might try (cough, me, i know, I'm not very good, cough) to break into the upper echelon of Ranger writers, we are mere mortals. This post is not a witch hunt, it is not meant to seek out anyone (f*ck it, I'll even leave Crops out of this), it is meant to inform. Before you post read this, the always enthralling GoET's User's Guide to LSB. Learn it. Know it. Live it. It will save you a lot of annoyance and anger down the road.

That being said, if you are new to the site, and have read the manual and think you are still ready to thrown down your first FanPost, be prepared for the worst. While you might think people are very interested in your opinions on the Galarraga debacle, or how Manny and A-Rod are a bunch of jerks, or how much you think Nolan Ryan has changed the framework of this team and how sorry Jon Boy is as a GM, there is a 92% chance they will dismiss your attempt at insight with scalding opinions of your writing style and your general worldview. Could they just ignore it and be nice? Sure. But they won't. That being said if you think your opinion is gold, and you are preparing to jump off the LoneStarBall high dive, consider these, the 5 stages of LSB FanPost Grief:

1) Denial:

Yes, your post is the f*cking sh*t. You spent all of 6 minutes writing, researching, editing, spell checking and looking through your post for grammatical errors. What could go wrong? Your opinions are fresh (especially the ones about the Danks trade and the Sammy Sosa signing), your writing style is borderline Shakespearian, and you are confident that this will be one of the best things anyone has ever seen written about the Rangers. Before you hit the "Publish" button you ponder dreams of JD sending you an email asking for your thoughts on pending trade possibilities, that Nolan will ask you about the state of the Ballclub, and that at some point Jamey Newberg will ask you to just take over the Report, because he has met his match. You hit the "Publish" button and kick your feet up on your desk, put your hands behind your head like a baseball Gordon Geko, and wait for your adoring public to carry you off the proverbial field on their shoulders. Then it happens. 1st comment.

From dirkatron:

"God dam*it, another sh*tty fan post this week, great"

Huh? Maybe that guy is just a dick, look at him in his picture, with his wife beater and ant eater tongue, this is still the best f*cking thing anyone has ever written. 2nd comment.

From tball:

"Cool, let's rehash all of this stuff again, there haven't been hundreds of articles, comments and posts about this done before, great job new guy!!"

Still the best thing I've written, f*ck these guys. 3rd comment.

"Meh"

"God this is terrible, I would rather spend an hour in a hot tub with Josey than read this crap"

"Dude, cut off your hands and never type again"

Alright, f*ck this, I'm getting pissed...

2) Anger:

Alright, screw these guys, they don't know what good writing is. I'm going to show their asses.

From RangersAreAwesome:

"You know what, you guys don't know sh*t. How cool are y'all. I have been a f*cking Rangers fan since Oil Can Boyd was on the mound and I don't need to put up with this crap from a bunch of losers who sit on their computer all day making fun of people for trying to voice their opinion! That's what this is right? A place for people to write opinions without having people be a*sholes to them? F all of you. You sure know how to make someone feel welcome."

That's right, no one can say sh*t now...

From Arlington Stadium Legend:

"Douche"

F*ck...

From RangersAreAwesome:

"Douche. Is that all you got? Mr. I know f*cking everything about the Rangers and I'm a cocky piece of s*hit who will make fun of anyone who writes anything that isn't Jamison D. Newberg or Adam Morris? Prick"

P'wnd...

From KnockoutKing (replying to Arlington Stadium Legend):

"+1"

From NoNameOnCard:

"Listen man, we aren't trying to piss you off, just realize, you aren't a good writer. You can voice your opinions in comments, just don't start a FanPost if it isn't very good or isn't very current. If it is go ahead with it, but don't bring weak sh*t to the table"

3) Bargaining. 90% of the time as soon as someone explains that we don't inherently dislike everyone who posts, that we just don't want to waste our time reading through someone's opinions if they have no basis or relevance for the current situation (i.e. past trades and roster moves, diatribes which could be confused as personal attacks, whining, bitching, or over-fanning) they usually cling to that person and enter the bargaining phase:

From RangersAreAwesome (replying to NoNameOnCard):

"Ok, so maybe it wasn't the best piece of writing, but there is no reason for you guys to be as*holes to the new guy for no reason. I'm still going to post what I want, whenever I want, but I'll try and make sure that it is good."

4) Depression:

3 days later...

From KnockoutKing:

"Where has RangersAreAwesome been? I miss his scalding hot sports opinions."

Meanwhile, RangersAreAwesome has reread the 94 comments on his initial fan post 3 times and is now too fearful to post. He considers replying but logs out and heads over to Crops so he can see some writing that was certainly worse than his (sorry, sorry, but I had to). He hangs his head, weeps a single tear, and turns off his laptop.

5) Acceptance:

From RangersAreAwesome (replying to KnockoutKing):

"Still here, figured I'd take a break from my awesome FanPosts for a while...God, I reread it yesterday, it really was brutal"

From KnockoutKing:

"No worries man, welcome back."

I know this will probably booed off the stage, but that's ok. I have accepted my role here at LSB. If you are new here just take some time to get used to it. As horrible as some of these guys will come off as initially you will grow to like their styles. Just be informed, not too obtrusive or opinionated, and don't waste peoples time with poorly written, poorly researched FanPosts. You will regret it. That being said, I want to share with all the newbies a comment from the first FanPost I put up on this site:

From CanadianRanger:

You include yourself in the so called “informed” Rangers’ fans. No disrespect intended, but you don’t need to spam us with your miserable analysis everytime something squirts out your brain. This is an imaginary situation, and there is something extremely dishonest about using modern media to complain about old media. It absolutely does not matter how small your part in it may be, but if you’re contributing to public consciousness, criticizing people with whom you compete for my time is not worthy of content, and it certainly isn’t worthy of spamming us here. Please don’t behave as if you are somehow independent or superior to sports media.

Furthermore, as much as I enjoy the content that is sometimes made accessible here, your website is becoming more and more obviously below par. I’m sure you have some shred of talent within your body, but you’re too busy using it to bug your favorite players on facebook for worthless interviews in which you are being mocked without your knowledge to spend it on actual worthwhile analysis like Newberg or any of the other fine posters here. Please, stop.

Don't let these jackoffs get you down. Welcome to the club. Go Rangers.