Today, free agency takes away a lot of your heroes, they go somewhere else. Some of them don't but a lot of them do-take the higher offer to go somewhere else. And, it turns the fans off because they get attached to the players.
Off the pitch, everyone says I and Mario Balotelli look alike, but I don't think so. A fan was waiting for a long time after a game for me. When I came out it turned out he was waiting as he thought I was Mario. He was pretty disappointed!
I think I lost at least 40% of my fans when I became blond. They didn't recognize me anymore.
The fan is the one who suffers. He cheers a guy to a .350 season then watches that player sign with another team. When you destroy fan loyalties, you destroy everything.
After the strike, I lost interest. In reality, neither players nor owners care in the least about the fans. The greed of both factions has destroyed baseball's credibility, at least for the present.
Fans don't like owners. They know they are somewhere - actually, in Germany, some owners are anonymous. Fans don't sympathize with owners, so ownership stays in the back.
Maybe the ones burning my jersey were never LeBron fans anyway.
I have had quite a few obsessive fans. They write to me and then they turn up at signings and look really sheepish. If I said 'boo' to them, they would run away. I think they maybe believe I could take over their lives and sort them out. If they saw the state of my kitchen they wouldn't think that.
When fans of mine meet me, I can see the disappointment in their eyes. Every artist knows of this phenomenon.
It's a shame the Manchester United situation turned sour.
