Things did not go well in the home opener for the Miami Dolphins. They went so badly, in fact, that some fans took to the exits, choosing to beat traffic rather than watch the end of a pathetic 41-14 Buffalo Bills beatdown. Some of those fans didn't even want the throwback pennant the team gave away when they walked into the game — so they handed them to one Dolphins fan who decided that one man's trash is another man's profit.
Fins fan Vinbob Manetta tells New Times he decided that if other fans didn't want the freebie, he would take it off their hands and put it on eBay, all to see if he could recoup some of the money he's wasted supporting the Dolphins' suckery over the years.
"I was drunk, and the people at the gate kept handing them to me, so I just kept taking them. I wish I'd grabbed more. I figured why not try to sell them and make a few bucks back from what we spent on tickets to that disaster," he says. "I feel a little bad selling them since I know some Fins fans who wanted one, but I sent a couple away for nothing."
Apparently there was a market for the giveaway, because he's already recouped a little game-day flow.@MiamiDolphins please RT, tryin to sell my pennant from sunday to recoup some $ I wasted on game tix, thx pic.twitter.com/CCEPkSDtPK
— Vinbob (@Vinbob) September 30, 2015
"I sold three already at 'Buy it now' prices, from $17 to $30 each, as far as West Virginia," Vinbob says. "The auctions already have lots of people watching. One guy emailed me this morning: 'Great description. My sentiments exactly.'"
The Dolphins' 1-2 start has been particularly hard on fans because they truly believed the team would challenge the Patriots for the AFC East title this season — turns out, not so much. The Dolphins are now in the unenviable position of having the fourth game of the year being referred to by many as a must-win, and that's never a good sign that you're going places.
Manetta says he's finally reached a breaking point. He's been supporting the team for years, and all the Dolphins have done is thrown his love on the ground, stomped it into a fine powder, and snorted it off the kitchen table.
"My entire life, it's really been the worst, except the Dan years — at least we have him," he says. "I hate getting texts with 'Man, that was a tough loss' from family and buddies who aren't even Fins fans; they just pity me now."
As the Dolphins tank, Manetta isn't alone in his creative fundraising tactics. Recently, another fan took to Craiglist to post an ad asking for money that we can only assume would be going toward his friend's therapy due to all his years of supporting a team that continually punches him in the balls. The ad reads:
We aren't one to judge here, but that seems like an ad better suited for GoFundMe.
Regardless of how the team performs this Sunday morning in London, Manetta says he'll be catching the rest of this season's games at home.
"You can only take so much," he says. "I can suffer the same on my couch the rest of the year. Some of us are going to Nashville for the Fins-versus-Titans game next month. I'll just wake up and start drinking moonshine that Sunday."
