As A Missourian Are You Willing To Die On This Hill?
Only In Your State recently published an article entitled "7 Hills Every Missourian Is Willing To Die On" and I think it's full of lies. Because I'm honestly, not willing to passionately argue any of the points in their article. Yet, there's one point, in talking to many Sedalians that I just don't believe.
The Only In Your State article argues that: Missouri is the home to the best barbecue, fried ravioli is the best ravioli, St. Louis-style pizza is the best, Missouri's wine country is second to none, summer is for floating, finicky weather doesn't stress us, and you can't be a fan of both the Royals and Cardinals.
Well, I'm a Missourian who doesn't care about barbecue. I have no desire to go floating around some lake or river over the summer. Not to mention, finicky weather? Everyone stresses out about the weather, especially in the winter.
As for ravioli, yeah I like fried ravioli the best but I'm not willing to die on that hill. Missouri's wine country is second to none, but that doesn't mean you can't get fine wines from other parts of the country or let's be honest, the world. As for St. Louis pizza, I still need to try it, although it sounds and looks good to me.
The best pizza though? I probably won't think so. Not because I'm a pizza snob, but because there are two or three pizza places back home in Chicago I grew up on and I believe whatever your favorite pizza was growing up, is probably the pizza that you're going to think is the best.
I'll cite, for example, Quad Cities pizza. Yeah, the Quad Cities has its own type of pizza which I think is absolutely hot garbage. Yet, ask someone who grew up there what their favorite pizza is, and it'll be this stuff on a crust that barely qualifies as pizza in my mind.
Yet none of these things really matter. The hill I'm calling B.S. on is that you can only be a fan of the Royals or the Cardinals. You see, I've done a lot of research on this subject. Are there parts of Missouri where this is true? Perhaps if you live in Kansas City or St. Louis or the close-in suburbs. But that doesn't hold true everywhere. Perhaps some really passionate fans of one of the teams feel this way, yet that doesn't seem to be the case in the Sedalia area. At least among baseball fans that I've talked to.
I've talked to many fans about this because I was surprised KSIS was a Cardinals affiliate based on our closer proximity to Kansas City. Yet it was Kyle Herrick, in one of our first conversations together when I came to town, who explained older folks in the Sedalia area had a rooting interest in them because they've been Missouri's baseball team since 1882. The Royals didn't even come into existence until baseball's expansion in 1969. Some of it's generational, and some of it is league preference.
In Sedalia, you wind up with fans who may have a team preference, like Cardinals over Royals or vice versa. Yet, many don't seem that passionate about a rivalry. One of the biggest Cardinals fans I know, Coldwell Banker realtor, Tony Monsees would rather bust my chops over being a Cubs fan than a Royals fan. He's even enjoyed games at The K.
I know rivalries too, I've lived in a few towns like The Quad Cities, Champaign-Urbana, and Lafayette, and trust me you're either a Cubs or a Cardinals fan. I couldn't walk into my favorite Quad Cities donut shop without getting the business from the woman at the counter. Or my co-worker in Lafayette who was always busting Cubs fans' chops in the office.
The rivalry between Royals fans and Cardinals fans in the Sedalia area, well it just doesn't seem to be that big a thing. So yeah, every Missourian dying on that hill. I call B.S.