I’m a Yankee fan and most years I like to see Chicago do well.
I’m a NY Giant fan and so I like to see any team playing Dallas do well. I begrudgingly root for New England because I love the team concept and how Bill Belichick coaches.
I like for the Mets to do well as long as the Yankees are doing well, but ’86 was painful. I will always look at that as the year “Boston choked big time”.
I am a Nets fan, I tend to root for teams that play like a team. Like Detroit a few years ago. I enjoyed rooting against LA during their runs.
I gave up on hockey, Rangers were my team and the Dolans have ruined hockey for me. I doubt if I will ever root for a hockey team again.
Forgive me ignorance, but who are the Jailbirds? The Ravens and their blackhearted former owner Modell? The Michael Irvin era Cowboys? The always evil Raiders? Beats me. Please inform.
As to to OP, when I was a kid in Cleveland I had favorite players and so I liked the teams they played for. I liked Fran Tarkenton so I liked the Vikings, I liked Paul Warfield when he was with the Browns so I liked the Dolphins after the stupid Browns traded him to Miami. There were a lot more teams I hated (ie the Yankees, the Steelers, the Raiders, the Lakers, the Celtics) than liked. I always admired the Earl Weaver led Orioles though.
Funny little Quote from Ron Luciano involving Weaver.
“The best thing I can say about Billy Martin,
is that he is the only man that hates Weaver more than I do.”
I am a life-long Cubs fan, and I also bleed Dodger Blue. I am a Red Sox fan by marriage and a Padres fan as a result of the wife and I trying to find a “neutral” team to root for that is close enough for us to attend games regularly.
I will root for anyone else in the AL East as long as they’re not 1) the Yankees or 2) playing Boston.
The scars of '86 have healed for me, and they have Pedro, so I’ll watch a Met game if it’s on. That tolerance may change in late October, depending on how things shake out, though.
To join the cycling bandwagon, I might have to with CSC as well-- it’s nice to see someone give Postal and Telekom a run for their money, and I probably am too much a ‘fan’ for Rabobank, Quickstep and Domo to count them.
I like the St. Louis Cardinals, but that’s because my friend’s son plays for them!
I like the NY Rangers in hockey.
My husband has been a die-hard Tampa Bay Buccaneers fan since he was about 8. His stepdad went to USC, so they were big McKay guys. When McKay went to TB, hubby became a fan by default. Imagine the horror when the Bucs actually won it all!!! We never thought they would ever do anything except break our hearts.
“Coach, how do you feel about your teams execution today?” - Reporter
“I’m all for it!” - Coach John McKay, Tampa Bay Buccaneers '76-'84
To preface, I’m a Buffalo fan, which means I live and die for the Bills, the Sabres, and the Clippers. Well, okay, I don’t really follow basketball, so I can’t quite claim to live and die (I mean geez, let’s not get melodramatic) for the Clippers, but if I’m in a situation where I have to express support for someone in the NBA, it’s the Clippers.
I’m a non-fan of the following teams:
Detroit Lions: in college I found a little bar that was willing to play off-market games on Sundays so I could watch the Bills, and I had a friend who would come to watch the Lions. It’s funny how if you see enough games week after week, you can’t but help starting to be slightly interested in the team. Like saoirse mentioned, I found it useful to have an NFC team to follow. Once I expressed worry about what would happen if the Bills and the Lions someday ended up in the Superbowl together, and my Detroit-fan friend was all “Okay, I think that’s something you can safely put on the back burner until it actually happens, in which case you can start worrying that you’ve been sucked into an alternate dimension.” Actually, he stared at me with the Glare of Death for about five minutes before he said anything.
Kansas City Chiefs: I don’t know why I like them especially, but I’m nearly obsessed with the idea of going to a game at Arrowhead. I’ve just heard such great things about the experience – good stadium, good fans, good tailgating. Huh, I guess I’m not really a non-fan of KC, I’m more like a fan of Arrowhead. My dream is to go to a game there that does not involve the Bills so I don’t have any stress.
Detroit Red Wings: Oddly, this has nothing to do with the Detroit Lions, but I’m a huge fan in general of Scotty Bowman. I felt conflicted about the Hasek years, but I soldiered through.
I’ve been following the New York Rangers since I got into hockey, despite the fact I’m a lifelong resident of New Jersey (I’ve a cousin who is a diehard Devils fan; hockey discussions tend to be . . . lively). I suppose the Original Six thing goes right along with the fabled tradition of the NHL.
Of the six (Toronto Maple Leafs, Montreal Canadiens, Boston Bruins, Detroit Red Wings, Chicago Blackhawks, and New York Rangers), I guess the Red Wings are my favorite; they earned my respect by dint of being perennially competitive - and Steve Yzerman seems like a class act.
Funny, I’m from Detroit and I’m going to school in Buffalo. I’m kind of the oposite.
I’ve taken to being the bad guy and rooting openly against the Bills. I love it when I’m right more than the Bills fans. About halfway through the season, they revert back to their old roots, in which they realize their team is imploding.
I’ve taken to talking smack about the Sabres. You locals LOVE that shit.
It was, and still is, a general West Coast bias. For example, driving home tonight, I was listening to the Dodgers vs the Cubs and was rooting for the Dodgers.
I think a lot of it was from my childhood. My family NEVER went on vacation. I developed a fascination with the West Coast. The 1984 LA Olympics added to that while I was in high school
I’ve always rooted for Georgia’s football team for some reason. I think I really liked their bright red uniforms, and I always saw them play loud, exciting, and important night games when I was younger.
I’ve pulled for the Patriots in all of their recent Super Bowls because of Tom Brady.
Well, if you’re going to say CSC, allow me to say Discovery, although my dislike is fading in the post-Lance era.
A very well run team that also has a lot of loud mouth jackasses hanging on like Chris Carmichael and others. But damn, I hear that they have an impressive level of organization from everyone that I talk to.
Incidentally, I don’t see a trend developing. I though there’d be a theme by now with people being attracted to the likes of the Cubs, Red Sox, Yankees, Patriots, Fighting Irish, Cowboys, Bulls and whoever else resides at the top of the jersey sales charts and has tons of national exposure. I suppose it says something that underexposed teams seem to be getting most of the sentimental support.
I am an NFL Dolphins guy under these conditions. My Redskins [who I follow fanatically] have played them twice in SuperBowls and those games are the exception there is no confusion there … but since I was a boy I always like the quirky orange and white unis and that stoned/alien looking Happy DolphinTM on the helmet. I thought Marino was one of the finest guys to play - as well as a great QB --and that hero worship definitely played in. When he was at Pitt I had talked alot of crap to my buds about what a major league QB he was going to be and when I totally lucked out (had no idea/dumb kid) and he was great right away, well 15 years of “Did I call this? or did I call this?” followed. When Shula retired I thought I might check out … but then JJ came in with alot of hope and hoopla … really, I never stopped liking them.
This year there was a Pittsburgh Steeler undercurrent in my 7 Year Old’s class. Kind of odd. But he asked me 10,000 Questions about Bettis and Big Ben and the Team and cheered so loud that I jumped on the bandwagon for the playoff run. :o I kept trying to soften the inevitable bow out and it never happened.
I jumped on the Jordan Bandwagon and loved the Bulls – but that was blatant bandwagoneering and a great player worship and not really team non-fandom
Grew up outside of Chicago, family moved outside of NYC in my early teens, and lived for a year in Wilmington NC. Obsessive Giants fan, secondary Jets fan, beleagured Rangers fan, and apathetic Mets and Knicks fan. (I like for the Yankees to do well for the schaudenfreud of watching payroll imbalance taint the league.)
You would probably disqualify it, but the Carolina Panthers are my proxy team. The year I lived in NC was the year they announced the expansion franchise, and the excitement of all the guys I knew there was palpable. Toss in the John Fox connection, and there you go. I don’t even hold last year’s wildcard debacle against them; that was all G-Men ineptitude. (Brandon Short would be the posterboy for this cross-fandom. Also Michael Barrow, or maybe Kerry “box of rocks” Collins; damn I’d love for him to be Eli’s backup, though not as much as I covet Jay Fiedler.)
Used to be the Chargers, but their whiny fanbase soured me on the franchise after the Eli snafu. I have tremendous respect for the Steelers, Packers, and Bears organizations, though I virtually never root for them.
In hockey, the 'Canes of course. Again with the Carolina connection, and again they may not have been there yet when I lived in NC. (1992. When did they move?) Prior to the move they were in my home state of Connecticut, naturally. heh. (Just coincidence; I wasn’t a hockey fan at all until around 1998.) So probably a disqualification there again, but oh well.
I’m only a fan of the NFL and NHL, so technically the Knicks and Mets are on the level of proxy teams for me. Thus, there are no other ones for me to mention from baseball or basketball.
Of note is that I’m probably as invested in the Jets as your typical NFL fan is of his favorite team. It’s about the same level as my investment in the Rangers. The Panthers and Hurricane are a definite step below. My love for the Giants is beyond all rationale. Not on the level of the Fever Pitch guy, but a twelve step program probably wouldn’t hurt.
