Does anyone else root for teams in different cities/states?

Cafe Society
1

Consider this an offshoot of the Sports Dividing Lines thread.

Let’s cut right to the chase: I root for the Detroit Pistons, the Cleveland Browns and the Michigan Wolverines. My loyalties have come under some scrutiny in recent years with the Pistons’ success. That is, every postseason, some jealous Bulls fans keep wondering how I can root for teams in both Cleveland and Detroit when each city has an NFL and NBA team, the implication being that I jumped on the Pistons bandwagon somewhere down the road. Every year, I assure them that it’s always been this way for me, that such is the curse of those hailing from ambiguous territories (I’m from the Toledo, OH area). The jealous Bulls fans generally say something spiteful about how my loyalties should invariably lie within my home state’s borders. I remind them that if that were the case, their lives would be profoundly dull, as they never would have had the good fortune to make my acquaintance at the University of Michigan, but I digress.

I suspect that my dad was the bandwagoner. He was raised in Michigan, but in the late seventies, he moved to Northwest Ohio, where he raised his own family. The Bo vs. Woody rivalry ensured he remained a Michigan man. He may have had a fleeting allegiance to the Lions’ organization following his move, but when Bernie Kosar led Cleveland to some minor success (and some monumental failures) in the eighties, I don’t think he could resist the call of the Dawg Pound. The Pistons’ Bad Boys of 1988-90 must have cemented whatever loyalty remained to the Pistons’ organization. The Tigers also won the World Series in '84, but that one apparently didn’t stick.

Woody was fired before I was born, I was too young to remember The Drive or The Fumble, and I have only vague memories of the Bad Boys’ back-to-back rings. All I know is that when I came into my own as a sports fan in the early 90s, my older brother and my dad rooted for the Wolverines, the Browns and the Pistons. Who was I to argue? Eventually, I suffered through Chris Webber’s timeout, Gary Moeller’s tenure as UM’s head football coach (I remember hearing the M stood for “Mediocre”), a kidnapped Browns franchise, and those few years when I couldn’t tell which was worse, the Pistons’ record or their new color scheme. It may seem a little odd to some people, but I’ve bled with these teams as much as any fan my age. So don’t come crying “bandwagon” at me when I don my Pistons shirt for game 3 on Sunday (in Cleveland, ironically), or when the Browns finally win their first Super Bowl. I’ve been here, and I’ll always be here.

Damn, that was pretty long. So…anyone else have any loyalties unconstrained by geographical boundaries? Can you defend them?

2

I have no favorite sports, or teams. I am always rooting for whoever happens to be behind. Makes for a more interesting game.

3

As a kid in Oklahoma, my family always rooted for the Dallas Cowboys. As a contrarian, I needed someone else. My pick was the Minnesota Vikings due mainly to the play of Alan Page. Considering what a successful person he has become (in addition to his NFL career), I think I made a good decision.

4

Heh, another vote for support whichever is the smaller underdog team, a bit like MLees.

5

I guess mine are geographically-based, even if the allegiances are historical. I am a Browns fan as well, although both The Drive and The Fumble happened while I was living smack dab in Broncos Country. I was a Broncos fan when I lived there, except when they played the Browns. I still follow the Indians as well, even though I haven’t lived in Ohio since 1972.

6

Arizona Cardinals. I grew up in Ohio where the St. Louis Football Cardinals were often the second game of the Sunday doubleheader. When I was a boy, I used to write to the NFL teams to ask them to send me a copy of their schedule and promotional materials. The Cards always sent the nicest package.

7

Grew up in Detroit, so obviously I’m a Pistons, Red Wings, Tigers and Wolverine fan. The Cubs have always been my NL team because-- well, like every other 30-something guy in America, when I was little I would watch the Lovable Losers and Harry Carrey on WGN every day in the summer (greatest sports team marketing scheme in world history).

Now I live in Chicago, so I guess my allegiances cross geographical boundaries because I’m still a Detroit fan in every way-- except one. I’ll let you all guess which team I’ve stopped rooting for, and which team’s Super[sup]TM[/sup] bandwagon I’ve hopped on to.

(Fire Millen!)

8

I lived in Denver during the 90’s, followed the Rockies and Broncos. I went to many Rockies games at Coors Field and was as ecstatic as everybody else in the city when the Broncs won their 2 Super Bowl titles. I now live in Arizona and continue to root for the Rockies (don’t really know why other than they have spring training here in Tucson :rolleyes: ) even though I’ve also become a Diamondbacks fan. I still root for the Broncos and hope they win another conference championship and Super Bowl soon. I have never quite become a Cardinals fan.

9

In football, I never root for the Los Angeles team…but that’s mainly because it doesn’t exist. :smiley:

10

I became a Baltimore Orioles fan when I lived in Maryland, and that’s stuck. Though I follow the Rockies, if they meet in the Series, I’ll have to cheer the O’s.

11

Cubs fan: my dad is from Chicago and as a kid, I got to watch at Wrigley whenever we visited my grandparents.

Packers fan: my dad’s brother-in-law played the practical joke on my Bears-loving dad of sending me all sorts of Packers stuff when I was a kid in the 60’s, and it was no contest. :smiley:

Bengals fan: you had to get an AFL team to root for, and they sounded cool. Fact they made the playoffs their fourth(?) year in the league helped. Stuck with them through the stupid Steelers dominate years (very disappointing times)

Leafs fan: hell, there were only 6 to choose from, and they had a cool maple leaf logo!

12

Team of Scientists, you’re going to kill me, but I’m a Steelers fan, as are a lot of people in my DC suburb.

13

Bolding mine.

Where’s that knee-slapping, hysterical laughing smiley when you need it?

mhendo, Orioles fan

14

My history of teams I have rooted for is…weird. Some might accuse me of being a fair-weather fan, tho that isn’t exactly right either. I’ve lived in Jacksonville for 30+ years now, more or less, and it was only when the Jaguars were finally awarded to the town that I had a home team to root for. Part of it is that it is often the players of a given team which strike some spark in me, generate some inner affinities, and I’ll then start rooting for the player and then his team by association. When that player or players leave/retire, my interest in said team will wane. When a team is on a severe downturn it is hard to root for them because you would never see them on national television (until superstations and then netcasts came along of course), tho I have indeed suffered through many a crappy season without switching.

At the risk of boring everyone, here is my history, as brief as I can make it:

Football: Oakland Raiders 1975-2003 more or less. That collection of oddballs, for an outcast loner teen, really grabbed me, and since I have a pathological need to root for the underdog, the “cursed” or unlucky team, I became very emotionally invested in them. But over time the oddballs left, Al Davis became senile, and my interest drifted away. Did root for them in their last abortive Super Bowl appearance, otherwise have been a Jags fan since they joined the league.

Hockey: More weirdness; during their heyday, I had several dreams where I was playing with the 1980’s Edmonton Oilers; these dreams were very realistic and frankly some of the most fun ones I’ve ever had. At any rate this was a team playing about 1-2 classifications above the NHL; I doubt we’ll see their like again, and they endlessly fascinated me-I became absolutely convinced on several occasions that they were deliberately toying with opponents. But once Gretzky and then Messier left, my interest in them waned. When Mess joined the Rangers I predicably shifted my loyalties to them and their quest to win the Cup again after a long drought. After that I kind of grew attached to the Red Wings (mainly because Stevie Yzerman became my new hero), to the point I rooted against the Oilers during their series with the Wings last year. Unlike the Oilers the Wings went about their business with a sort of cool yet ruthless efficiency, never making mistakes (unlike this year’s squad who fucked themselves out of the Anaheim series).

Basketball: For reasons similar to my Oilers fascination, I became an instant fan of Dr. J. and the Philadelphia 76ers in the 1977 season, where they lost the finals 4-2 essentially because there weren’t enough basketballs to go around. The 1983 season was sweet redemption for Doc and the other long-suffering vets. I continued to follow them during the Sir Charles era, but lost interest when Iverson came on board, tho I have pretty much grown to loathe pro BB in the last 10 years in any event (Iverson being a primo example of why).

Baseball: I usually would root for two teams, one from each league. In the NL it has gone Reds/Cubs/Braves: Reds because for awhile there they were in a different league, Cubs starting in 1984 during their miracle year (again another underdog) up to the point when they traded my favorite player of the last 20 years, Greg Maddux (Ryne Sandberg being my 2nd favorite), where I switched to the Braves, esp. when Chipper Jones, who went to my high school, joined them.

In the AL however it has consistently been the Red Sox, ever since 1977 (I wasn’t a baseball fan oddly enough until 1976, missing the 1975 series for some reason), through good and bad and all the awful heartbreaking moments through the 2004 miracle.

15

i don’t follow sports much any more but when I was growing up in Iowa the state didn’t have any representation in the major organizations which was Major League Baseball at the time.

However, WHO Des Moines had Dutch Reagan broadcasting the Chicago Cubs games by recreation from teletype and I was a big Cubs fan. During the 1930’s they were a top team.

The recreations were great. The teletype might say, “Waner out 6-3” and it would come out as, “Waner hits a hot smash over second. Oh great, Jurges got it way out behind second and got Waner at first by a step.” or some such sequence.

16

I used to be a Laker fan back in the days of “Showtime”, with Magic, Kareem et al. After a while I stopped following basketball. Mr. Lucky, who is L.A. born and raised, also gave up on the Lakers years ago. He now follows the Clippers and the Suns, which made for a pretty interesting time of it when we went to Staples Center to see the Clippers play the Suns. :smiley:

17

I’m originally from Cleveland, and I’ll root for Cleveland teams first. But there are plenty of other teams I’ll root for too, for various reasons, so long as they’re not playing Cleveland. For instance, I like the community spirit of Green Bay, so I’ll root for the Packers, and I’m grateful to the Brewers for all those years when they provided a team the Indians could actually beat, so I’ll root for them, too.

Now, of course, there’s basically nothing in the way of professional sports here (Ever hear of the Bozeman Ice Dogs? Yeah.), so like everyone in Montana, I root for teams in other states. The most common seem to be the (relatively geographically close) Denver and Seattle teams, but I’ve also encountered fans of teams from Florida, Maryland, New England, Chicago, Manchester, and just about everywhere else.

18

I used to root for the Oakland Raiders. Back when they were just flat out mean and played dirty. Before they moved to LA. Before a lot of Dopers were born, I imagine. God I’m old.

19

C’mon up to the UP. Most of us up here are Packers fans. Makes sense - Green Bay is closer to most of the UP than Detroit is. Plus, we just don’t trust you guys below the bridge :smiley:

20

Hehehe, you must just HATE the year 1972…

And I’ve got to agree that back then they really were the Raiders, with all that name implied. :eek: