Chicago Mets Fan

Fandom

One of my co-workers likes to bust my chops because I can pick a team I want to win in almost any sporting event I watch. It’s true. If I’m going to watch an event, I want to have a reason to watch it, so I pick who I would prefer to see win.

Let’s start with the obvious, baseball. There is one team that I have been a fan of the longest: the New York Mets. That will never, ever change. It stems from growing up in Connecticut and New York, where I was taken to games with my dad.

In moving to Chicago, more specifically to the neighborhood where the Cubs are, their fandom is everywhere. It’s hard to not get sucked into it being the big sports fan that I am. I just can’t let myself ever root, in a die hard way, for another team in the National League. Even if that team is in a different division than the Mets. Because of that, I have adopted the White Sox as my Chicago team of choice. I do root for the Cubs when they play the other NL East teams, because a Cubs wins will help the Mets in the standings.

Back to my opening paragraph, though. I often watch different sporting events while at work and at home. On a day-to-day basis, I can get behind rooting for certain teams to beat another team. However, in baseball, I will always root for whoever plays the Yankees, Braves and Phillies. A little tougher dilemma comes when I have to pick a side when it’s Phillies vs. Braves. Who is the lesser of two evils? I still haven’t decided.

Hockey-wise, I have previously written about some of my hockey loyalties, and even my experience playing the sport, so I don’t feel the need to repeat it again. That said, I will always root against the Devils, Islanders, Flyers, Avalanche and Red Wings.

Switching to football, I never grew up a fan of any one team, professional or collegiate. When I began dating Nik, I decided I’d root for his teams. Not because they were always the first-place team, but because I had no other allegiances and figured this was a good way to go, being the sports fan that I am.

In the NFL, it’s the Steelers, and the Steelers only. College, it’s Penn State first, and Ohio State second. I always root against Michigan and Notre Dame. But when Michigan and Notre Dame play, I have another one of those conflicts. I tend to lean toward Michigan because it helps the public perception of the Big Ten Conference.

I don’t care about the NBA, so I’ll move along. In light of recent headlines, however, I will actively root against the Miami Heat.

The point of all of this? While I can always find a team to root for, I don’t own any of their merchandise. I am not that much of a die hard fan to do so. What I don’t understand is the small handful of people who can get all rah-rah for numerous teams in the same league, to the point of planning road trips around all of them, or buying their merchandise. I don’t get it. Sure if your significant other likes a different team, so be it, but that isn’t enough of a reason to put them on the level of fandom with your number one team.

This is a topic that is much easier to express verbally, and there is no right or wrong in rooting for multiple teams, but I hope to have expressed some of my feelings on it. What do you think of multiple die hard fandoms?