A horse is a horse, of course, of course

There are certain sports that have never made sense to me. Take horse racing, for example. Bad Idea Blue Jeans says it better than I ever could... and probably funnier, too.
But it is an excellent point. People go nuts for athletes, politicians, etc. because they are from the same locale. It isn't quite like Little League dad living vicariously through his son...but why should I have been a fan, for instance, of the Atlanta Braves simply because Dale Murphy, a guy I never met, attended a school in Portland that I never attended, played against in sports, watched, or in any other way had any association with other than living within a 40 mile radius of....just because Murphy lived here, suddenly I should root for the Braves?
What's next? If someone down the street wrote the script, does that mean I should watch Gigli? If someone down the street goes pro, should I suddenly think soccer is good for something besides curing insomnia? If someone from the great state of Oregon bounces their head off the side of a building and kills themself while base jumping should I be grief stricken? I am going to go with no. I really don't care.
Let's face it...even if the next great Ping Pong champion is from Goble, Oregon, I will keep thinking "ping-pong...great to play, but if you have to watch it, sucks to be you."