Within your favorite sport, how do you rank the teams? Who do you root for when your team isn’t playing? Who do you root against no matter who’s playing?
Personally, the only sport there is is baseball. In order:
Dodgers - I bleed Dodger Blue. Every year is a fresh start and a miserable finish. Dodger Stadium is a shrine to all that is Good and Holy, and grilled DodgerDogs are Ambrosia. Vin Scully is the Best Sportscaster That Has Ever Lived.
Red Sox - Fan by marriage. Rooting for an AL team feels dirty, but a good marriage is about compromises.
Padres, Rockies, Diamondbacks - The rest of the NLWest, who I like as a whole and will root for so long as they aren’t playing #1 or #2.
The rest of the National League - The DH is for pussies. Pitchers need to take their chops just like everybody else.
The American League - See previous note.
…
Yankees - If they were in a different league, with a different owner, and a different city, with different fans, I might actually not loathe them.
Giants - The team I would rather watch hockey than see play. The team that, if they stricken with projectile vomiting and explosive incontinence while trapped on a charter flight would strike me as the height of amusement. The “Yeah, and your uniforms are ugly, too!” team. <ptooey!>
So, how do the teams in your favorite sport rank with you?
Manchester City. I lived in south Manchester for several years, including a couple near the stadium, and working in a City supporter’s pub.
Celtic. I try to claim this is due to my Irish background, but really it’s just about Rangers fans being the most obnoxious creatures on the planet.
Spurs. Parental allegiance.
Liverpool. Likewise.
Torino. Another more distant family link, and it gives me something to care about in the Italian league.
Honourable mentions: Leyton Orient, who really should be in the no. 4 spot if my dad hadn’t been glory-hunting, and AFC Wimbledon, just because of what they stand for.
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Leeds. Hard to really say why.
Rangers. See #3.
West Ham. Seemingly supported entirely by bald tattooed coin-throwing thugs. Even the women.
Rockies My home team, so naturally. I had a share of season tickets 20 rows behind the dugout for the first 10 years the team was in existence. The guy who owned them moved and dropped the seats without telling anyone. Jerk.
Orioles Went to high school in Virginia and they were my first team, but I’ve been in Colorado for 20 years now, and we have our own team. Plus, I was invited to a tryout camp with the O’s, along with about 200 other HS kids. They didn’t even lok at me twice.
I really don’t have any teams that I hate - the Rockies don’t have a real rival yet. I don’t much care for the Blue Jays, they used to absolutely own the Orioles back in the day, when the O’s were good and Toronto sucked. The Marlins would have rate as well, mainly because they came into existence at the same time as the Rockies and have already won two World Series, and still nobody goes to their games.
Red Sox. Fan by birth. Can’t do anything about it.
Cardinals. Fan by relocation and marriage. 2004 was tough. My wife (girlfriend at the time) wouldn’t speak to me for those five days. Game four she listened to the first few innings in the car, walked into the apartment where I was watching on TV, shot me a dirty look, walked into the bedroom, slammed the door and didn’t come out again.
Cubs. Only since '04. I have a soft spot for them now and want them to get theirs.
4-16. The rest of the National League, except the Mets. American League fan by birth, but gotta agree with silenus. The DH sucks.
16-28. The rest of the AL except the Yankees.
Mets. Still bitter about '86.
10[sup]100[/sup]. Yankees. Naturally.
Mine is eerily similar to What Exit?‘s. Lifelong Yankee fan, born in the Bronx. The Red Sox are obviously the team I root for to lose, and for their fans’ teeth to fall out quicker then their inbreeding normally causes to happen. The Mets are a close second. I don’t really root for anyone other than the Yankees, unless they’re playing the Sox or Mets.
Red Sox - Lived in New England until my 20’s, so this one is pretty deep
Mariners - Moved to Seattle for grad school and have a lot of family there
Orioles, Blue Jays, Indians - No real reason
Cubs - I’d like to see them win a series
The rest of the American League (other than the Yankees)
The rest of the National League (don’t have much bitterness against the Mets anymore)
Yankees
The above can also be largely applied to Japanese baseball, with the Hanshin Tigers substituting for the Red Sox and the Yomiuri Giants substituting for the Yankees.
Boston Red Sox. Born and raised in Massachusetts. Not really much choice, there.
The rest I like for various reasons, in no particular order:
AL: Cleveland Indians, Anaheim Angels, Baltimore Orioles, Minnesota Twins, Detroit Tigers
NL: Colorado Rockies, San Francisco Giants, Houston Astros, San Diego Padres
Teams I don’t like…
AL: New York Yankees, Toronto Blue Jays, Oakland A’s, Tampa Bay Devil Rays, Chicago White Sox
NL: Chicago Cubs, Los Angeles Dodgers, New York Mets, Atlanta Braves, Philadelphia Phillies
I don’t think I could make a post long enough to cover all of the various permutations of my rooting standings.
My team is the Indians.
My new NL team is Milwaukee, because of the fondness I feel for their city hosting the Indians so generously during the snow days and because I needed an NL team and voila.
I do root for the Reds, but apathetically.
I generally prefer the AL to the NL, but I don’t like the Yankees, the Red Sox, the Twins, the White Sox, or the Mariners.
In the NL, I don’t like the Braves, but my hatred is waning.
I tend to love teams that lose, hate teams after they’ve been successful for a while, then once they fall down I start liking them again. I’m just weird.
NY Yankees. I once said I would root for the Nazis if they were playing the Yankees. I was only kidding a little.
Boston, at the moment for obvious current ALCS reasons.
Chicago Cubs. Gawd, are their fans ever annoying. “Isn’t our ballpark pretty? Isn’t our streak of not winning anything since the Polk Administration cute? Aren’t we the greatest, most die-hardest fans evah?”
Blue Jays. My hometown and favourite team. I bleed Blue Jay blue.
Phillies. I loved Mike Schmidt as a kid and will always have a place in my heart for them.
3 - 14. The rest of the American League, save the Red Sox.
15-29 The rest of the National League, save the Phillies.
Red Sox. Ruined for me by their fans, who are the most utterly despicable fans in pro sports.
In hockey, of course,
The Ottawa Senators
2-29 Everyone else
30-2,999,999 All the semipro, European, midget, Junior-A and pickup teams in the entire world.
3,000,000 The Toronto Maple Leafs, whose fans are even more despicable than Red Sox fans, and whose team is a complete and total joke that damages the NHL through its intransigence and stupidity. If the Maple Leafs were to play a game against the rep team from Hell, coached by Satan himself with Adolf Hitler playing goal and a front line of Mao, Stalin and Pol Pot, I’d show up to the game wearing red.
If I ever get rich somehow, my wife and I are going to get Maple Leafs season tickets right behind the home bench, and purchase jerseys of all the other teams in the league and attend every game cheering lustily for the other team while holding up signs that say “LEAFS SUCK.” It’ll be worth every penny.
Bears. The half of the family that I’m in contact with is from Chicago, so if I didn’t root for the Bears, they’d crucify me upside down on the front lawn. Remember that SNL skit with Mike Myers, Chris Farley and George Wendt? Yeah, they must’ve have modeled those guys off my dad. The trinity in our household is comprised of God, Jesus and Ditka. I can only get away with #2 because I’m the only person in my family who really cares about hockey.
Tampa Bay Lightning. I moved here when they sucked, but were building the team, and it was really exciting to watch them improve steadily over the years. I’m still heartbroken over the strike and Khabibulin’s move to Chicago that robbed us of a chance at a Stanley Cup repeat.
the Bulls (see #1)
Otherwise, I root for the underdog if these three aren’t playing. The only teams I really despise are the Buccaneers, Patriots, Eagles and Cowboys. Really obnoxious fans totally ruin these teams for me.
Ironically, I really liked the Bucs when I was a kid and they lost all the time and they had that awesome gay pirate as their mascot. I miss the gay pirate. But between the switch to the pewter fugliness and having to live around so many unreasonably rabid Bucs fans, they’ve totally lost my support. F*ck the Bucs!
1. Buffalo Bills fan, born and bred, cradle to grave, BEYOND THE GRAVE, etc etc.
2. Detroit Lions. They are my NFC team, I acquired them when the bar where I watched the Bills also featured the Lions. This is in NYC – it was always humorous when people would come in looking for the Jets or Giants, and were confused by the Bills and Lions, but both the Buffalo and Detroit fans brought a solid fanbase every week.
3. Anyone playing against an AFC East team other than the Bills. Also anyone playing against the Colts, because I still emotionally think of them as an AFC East team.
**4. ** Within the AFC East, I’ll go with New England over the Jets. And the Jets over Miami.
5. No opinion on other teams (exceptions below), although sometimes I will latch on to a particular player and follow him avidly. I was strangely obsessed with Art Monk for a number of years.
One less than negative infinity: The Miami Dolphins, although I do enjoy hating them.
Negative Infinity: The Dallas Cowboys. I get no enjoyment out of hating them, I just hate them. It’s as if they exist to make me full of bile. They’re like the “Everything That’s Wrong With America’s Team.”
I. Major League Baseball
**A. My favorite at all times:**Seattle Mariners - What can I say? If you want to know why, just look at where I’m from. B. In order of preference, teams I’ll always root for during the post-season except when they’re playing the Mariners.
Chicago Cubs - Going on 100 years since their last championship and 63 years since their last World Series appearance, I want to say they’re the tragicomic kings of baseball but I then remembered that the original definition of “tragicomedy” requires a happy ending. That’s something that hasn’t happened to the Cubs since the Teddy Roosevelt Administration.
Boston Red Sox - In the post-season I used to root for them for the same reason as the Cubs. However, since winning in 2004, they’ve become less interesting to me. Still good for drama in a series though.
San Francisco Giants - I used to live in Northern California. It was during that time I started following sports and the Giants were one of the baseball teams closest to me. I’m rather indifferent about the team now but, during the post-season, some of the old fan reflexes inevitably kick in.
Oakland A’s - see answer to 3 and substitute “A’s” for “Giants”.
Philadelphia Phillies - I’ve never lived in or even been to Philadelphia but, while growing up, I was a big fan of the team when they made post-season for the same reasons I follow the Cubs and (until 2004) the Red Sox now. However, once they finally won their first and only championship in 1980, the team wasn’t as interesting to me. Still, I give them slightly more of my interest during the post-season. C. Indifferent about: every other remaining team in MLB (except for one).
**D. Always root against: ** the New York Yankees - Like nearly every American who’s not from (or used to live in) the Tri-State area.
II. National Football League A. My favorite at all times: Seattle Seahawks - see I.A. B. Teams I’ll root for during the post-season except when they’re playing the Seahawks.
Cleveland Browns - I’d just like to see Cleveland finally get into the Super Bowl.
San Francisco 49ers - see my answer to I.B.3 and 4. C. Indifferent about: every other remaining team in the NFL (except for two). D. Always root against:
Oakland Raiders - I used to be a fan but moving to the Pacific Northwest made me see the error of my ways. Still, they’re only really fun to hate when they’re good (which they haven’t been recently).
Dallas Cowboys - Probably hate them more than any team in professional sports (including the Yankees). For me, every Cowboy loss is cause for unabashed and unapologetic schadenfreude.
III. National Basketball Association - somewhat follow the Seattle Supersonics. Indifferent about the rest.
**IV. National Hockey Association ** - Indifferent about the whole sport. I might’ve been interested but the league (in its infinite wisdom) sees fit to put franchises in such hotbeds of cold weather sports like Miami and Phoenix and ignore the American Pacific Northwest so screw 'em.
V. College Football A. My favorite at all times: University of Washington Huskies - Since I’m an alumnus, this is obvious. However, they haven’t given me much to root for over past few years. (Right now, a .500 season would be cause for celebration.) B. Teams I’ll root for in a bowl game.
Washington State Cougars - I should probably have my B.A. from the UW revoked for writing this but I live in Eastern Washington and it is rather hard to maintain a “my two favorite teams are the Huskies and whoever’s playing the Cougars this week” attitude at all times. Plus, there’s the whole “lovable loser” factor since until the number of bowl games expanded exponentially, the Cougars were pretty much the Chicago Cubs of the Pac 10 (and Pac 8) in terms of bowl appearances.
Every other team in the Pac 10 except for the Arizona schools, USC, and UCLA. C. Indifferent about: every other college football team.
VI. College Basketball A. My favorites at all times:
Gonzaga Bulldogs - Another school from which I earned a degree. Plus, there’s the whole “small school makes it big” factor.
University of Washington Huskies - Except when they’re playing Gonzaga. B. Indifferent about: every other college football team.
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But between the switch to the pewter fugliness and having to live around so many unreasonably rabid Bucs fans, they’ve totally lost my support. F*ck the Bucs!