It's now official: the act of posting viral YouTube videos of kids crying in reaction to their favorite sports team or athlete letting them down has completely jumped the shark. The video you see below provides empirical proof of just such a thesis.
Consider: This is not Steve Nash leaving for the Lakers. It's not even the Thunder dropping Game 3 of the NBA Finals. This is Mike Napoli leaving the Texas Rangers for the Boston Red Sox.
Please don't get Prep Rally wrong. Napoli is a heck of a player, and may well prove to be worth the three-year, $39 million contract he just inked with Boston. But he isn't a transcendent superstar like LeBron James, Kevin Durant or even Nash are in basketball. He wasn't even the best bat in the lineup at his former club (for that reaction, wait until Josh Hamilton inevitably signs somewhere else and check back with the unnamed young fan in question again).
Still, Napoli had his legion of diehard fans, among whom this elementary schooler was chief. In addition to insisting on playing as a catcher whenever he hits the baseball diamond, the kiddo also allegedly dressed as Napoli for Halloween.
Does that make Napoli's departure harder to take? Sure. The crestfallen look on his face is a direct link to pure heartbreak, the kind that you just never see coming when you're an idealistic kid who assumes his favorite players will always be in the lineup until retirement (where have you gone, Mike Greenwell?).
Still, the advent of YouTube has created a subculture of parents videotaping these raw emotional outbursts and presenting them to the general world for all posterity. When this young Rangers fan turns 46, he'll still be able to go see the time he bawled over Mike Napoli's departure from his beloved team. It may make for good rehearsal dinner viewing if he has a Rangers-themed wedding, but outside of that its just cruel.
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