My brother and I are long time baseball fans and we decided to throw a name on this phenomenon. We call it the "Dancing Bear Principle". It started at a Phillies game where we had some great tickets about ten rows behind the third base dugout by showing up late. The Phillies were playing the Giants and it was late in the season when Bonds was chasing the HR record and everyone in our section was booing the hell out of him every time he came out of the dugout. We started talking about this and decided that we didn't agree with everyone's condemnation but not because we thought he was clean or anything like that. We just decided that it was more fun to watch this person we didn't care about enough to piss on him if he was burning turn himself into a borderline hydroceph just so we could enjoy the spectacle of his 500 foot moonshots. To us, he was nothing more than a momentary amusement, like a bear dancing in the circus. Around the seventh inning, Bonds comes out of the dugout into the on-deck circle and, sure enough, everyone starts in with the booing again. Only this time, when it quiets down just enough, my brother stands up and yells, "Don't listen to them, Barry! Hit homeruns to keep us amused, you dancing bear!" And then as everyone in our section started laughing, Bonds actually stopped and turned around with this really pissed off look on his face and just mad-dogged my brother.
Since then, we've used the "Dancing Bear Principle" to justify our ongoing support for de-regulation of brutal NFL hits, Lance Armstrong and the entire world of track and field. I totally understand the outrage for athletes who participate clean, but since we're just spectators (and, importantly, spectators without kids so we aren't trying to teach notions of fair play or anything like that), we continue to support the circus-like thrill of watching some self-destructive gladiator performing ludicrous and unnatural feats of strength as we throw coins at him, fully aware that the moment another more impressive specimen appears, we'll toss him aside like an old pair of shoes.
