When is it OK to have a "2nd team"

[ivpvideos]

Growing up in Baltimore we didn't have a team. Green was my favorite color, Favre was pretty cool and they seemed to be televised more. Almost went to the Redskins but my dad was a huge fan and a dick so I was like nah.

1996 the Ravens come to town, same year Packers won the Super Bowl. Still root for the home team but every four years I am rooting for the Packers to squash the Ravens

[piranesi]

So, this came up in the baseball thread when the talk briefly turned to our resident racist bandwagoneer sabremike.

 

 

Oh yeah.  Isn't he the guy who gets enraged every time a Dominican wins the batting title?

 

As a Cardinals fan I find it buoying to find so many people believe so strongly there is "the right way" to do these things.

[sabremike]

So, this came up in the baseball thread when the talk briefly turned to our resident racist bandwagoneer sabremike.

Oh yeah. Isn't he the guy who gets enraged every time a Dominican wins the batting title?

As a Cardinals fan I find it buoying to find so many people believe so strongly there is "the right way" to do these things.

I'm also the guy who wants the Wilpons to be publicly hanged if they don't sign a certain black Cuban so...

[Death From Above]

The only sport where I really have more than one team is soccer, which is helped by the fact it has so many different leagues. Besides as a Tottenham fan, and a lifelong Edmonton Oilers fan who has now faced like 25 years of Maybe Next Year, I am entitled to having one team that wins every year in the face of underwhelming opposition. So God bless Celtic FC forever and our 7462 Scottish titles.

 

Generally I think this is a vastly overblown issue among people that are in deep in sports and take shit way too seriously. I mean, I know someone that grew up in Philly and now lives in LA who likes the Flyers and the Kings, and it's pretty dumb this person would ever have to put up with the notion of explaining this. I also think ostracizing people for liking more than one thing discourages casual/new fans, and also encourages weirdos that are 400 times more into a club than they are into an actual sport. You know who I mean "Yeah I'm a big baseball fan. No my team didn't make the playoffs so I didn't watch a minute of it. But I'm a huge baseball fan. Go Local Team." These are the weird people that drive 95% of sports talk radio where they have very important opinions about why the coach should be fired.

 

I'm both a fan of my local clubs (and a couple others Blue Jays in baseball since I have no western Canada option etc), but of sports too. Shit I just want to see good games. The only teams I really get emotionally involved in are my one team, but I want to see as much as possible.

[AxB]

Every week you should have two teams. The Team you like, and the whichever team that's playing against the team you most hate.

[Matt D]

I have strong feelings about this apparently:

 

1.) If you move: I think this is fair with certain terms. The first is that you can't go gung ho about it on day one. It has to be a gradual thing. It has to be even more gradual if you move to a place with a winning team. You have to follow it. You have to learn it. You have to go through the good times and the bad. And even then, it only works right if this team is in a different region/league/etc. than your primary team. If you are geographically in a certain area and paying money towards a team and associating with people who root for it, I think you can root as well, even if it'll always be secondary. More lenience can be given if you have a kid who grows up in said new area as a fan of the local team, I'd think. People who live somewhere without a logical local team has some lenience here too, so long as they aren't asses or fickle.

 

2.) If you publicly rescind your affiliation with your first team. Even then, some of the rules for 1 apply, and frankly, you can't be an ass about it.

 

3.) If you pick the very worst team in the league, so long as you stick with it over at least two seasons and this team is not in the same region/conference/etc. as your own team. Then, once again, you have to do your homework. It's not the same as buying stocks low. You have to put work into it.

[Josh Mann]

I think you can only do the two team deal if neither of them are: the Yankees, Seahawks, Patriots, Cavaliers, Red Sox, Heat. I don't know what the hockey analog to those are.

If you have backups to any of those you're definitely not a real fan.

I was a Lakers fan prior to 1988 because of Magic and because I was born in Inglewood (but we moved to Florida when I was still a toddler), and I kept them the first couple of years of the Heat as a 2nd team but after that ditched them altogether. Now it's like that Laker period never happened.

[Craig H]

I love Notre Dame since I grew up with the team and have always lived right near campus, but I also like IU because they're my alma mater. It helps that IUs football program is always dogshit, but it's fun whenever the basketball team is doing well.

I didnt really appreciate at the time that the Bill Mallory/Anthony Thompson era of going to the Liberty Bowl level bowl games was the best it was ever going to get.

Oh, dude, what a sad, sad ceiling. All I look forward to now is the random total shootout, the near upset, and the complete obliteration by another team type games.

And when I received my last alumni magazine thingy, I half expected Kyle Schwarber to be on the cover.

[steve]

Having two teams never worked for me, even though I tried a few times.

 

In baseball, I was a Ken Griffey Jr. mark, so when he got traded to the Reds, I jumped with him. It didn't feel right to me, though. I tried going back to rooting for the Mariners, but that wasn't the same anymore either, so now I kinda just don't give a crap about baseball whatsoever.

 

Football, I was raised a Cowboys fan, but The Panthers came along when I was 10, so it was easy for me to take them on as well. I thought I rooted for them both for about the first year or so, until the first game they played each other. There was no conflict in my mind or heart whatsoever, and I realized that I was 100% a Carolina fan.

 

Basketball I just quit watching when the Hornets left, until we got the Bobcats/Hornets 2.0. I tried to watch a Laker game one time, but I just didn't care at all.

[odessasteps]

I love Notre Dame since I grew up with the team and have always lived right near campus, but I also like IU because they're my alma mater. It helps that IUs football program is always dogshit, but it's fun whenever the basketball team is doing well.

I didnt really appreciate at the time that the Bill Mallory/Anthony Thompson era of going to the Liberty Bowl level bowl games was the best it was ever going to get.

Oh, dude, what a sad, sad ceiling. All I look forward to now is the random total shootout, the near upset, and the complete obliteration by another team type games.

And when I received my last alumni magazine thingy, I half expected Kyle Schwarber to be on the cover.

In my time, it was mickey morandini.

[grilledcheese]

I will never waver from my support of the Dodgers, but having grown up in San Jose, my Dad and I went to hundreds of A's games and I took quite a liking to guys like Dwayne Murphy, Carney Lansford, Alfredo Griffin and of course, who can overlook Rickey? I don't actively root for the Athletics, but I don't want to see them lose, either.

 

I don't mind it at all if folks have two clubs they root for, but I do think it is extra silly if they are in the same league. 

[Brysynner]

I would say if you move to a differnt sports city it is acceptable if they are not rivals. If your teams keeps a coach who is in the top 4 for worst coach ever in the history of the league it is acceptable. If your team leaves your city for another city

[Dewar]

The only sport where I really have more than one team is soccer, which is helped by the fact it has so many different leagues. Besides as a Tottenham fan, and a lifelong Edmonton Oilers fan who has now faced like 25 years of Maybe Next Year, I am entitled to having one team that wins every year in the face of underwhelming opposition. So God bless Celtic FC forever and our 7462 Scottish titles.

 

Generally I think this is a vastly overblown issue among people that are in deep in sports and take shit way too seriously. I mean, I know someone that grew up in Philly and now lives in LA who likes the Flyers and the Kings, and it's pretty dumb this person would ever have to put up with the notion of explaining this. I also think ostracizing people for liking more than one thing discourages casual/new fans, and also encourages weirdos that are 400 times more into a club than they are into an actual sport. You know who I mean "Yeah I'm a big baseball fan. No my team didn't make the playoffs so I didn't watch a minute of it. But I'm a huge baseball fan. Go Local Team." These are the weird people that drive 95% of sports talk radio where they have very important opinions about why the coach should be fired.

 

I'm both a fan of my local clubs (and a couple others Blue Jays in baseball since I have no western Canada option etc), but of sports too. Shit I just want to see good games. The only teams I really get emotionally involved in are my one team, but I want to see as much as possible.

 

I would have given this a post a like, but fuck a Celtic.

 

Cheer for who you like, that's how I feel. I am clearly a Winnipeg Jets fan, but once they get eliminated every year, I have no problem throwing my support behind local kid Jonathan Toews and the Blackhawks. Doesn't mean I am saying "we won the cup!!!!" when the Blackhawks win, but it's nice to have a rooting interest. I used to want the Lightning to win the cup every year when the Jets were gone. Fuck, I even cheered for the Chris Pronger-led Oilers team that made the cup finals.

 

I draw the line at cheering for the fucking Flames or Canucks though. Screw those guys!

[SorceressKnight]

You can have two teams if, when they happen to play each other, you are miserable no matter what because one of them lost rather than happy no matter what because one of them won.

 

Modifying this to a simpler "Heel Color Commentator Rule":

 

If you cheer multiple teams that have a chance to play each other, you NEED to have a pecking order and stick with it. If you're miserable one lost, happy one won, whatever- but if it's the title game between your two favorite teams, you have to KNOW which one is your favorite and react accordingly, Likewise, if the team that wins becomes the new "favorite" team, then you're an asshole.

 

We all see the heel color moment in wrestling battle royals where someone comes in "Oh, that's my favorite!", and if some bigger fish comes in, "Oh, that's my favorite all along! They're winning", and on and on until the final winner's there and they say "I knew they'd win! I picked them all along!". Don't be that person.

[OSJ]

This is easy because some people are foolish enough to flip me shit over having two teams without any conception as to why this is so... As a kid in the sixties my life long love of baseball began before I could read or even fully understand what was going on.  Seattle didn't have MLB then, such a concept was laughable. We had the Seattle Rainiers and they were a perfectly good AAA team. As far as MLB went, we got a few games on the radio, fewer still on the television. By default, most kids were Yankees fans, I have never been one to be part of the status quo, so I became a Braves fan. (For some reason, the 3-4-5 of Aaron, Mathews, & Adcock was more inspirational to me than gimpy Mick and chain-smoking Roger. 

 

Yes, years later we got the Pilots, but they weren't around long enough for anyone to get invested in them (though I did pay special attention to the Brewers over the next few years as that's what we would've had...  By the time we got the Mariners, I had over a decade as a hardcore Braves fan, dating back to their time in Milwaukee. Perfectly fine, the two teams play in different leagues and only play each other what, once every three years? Now that I'm in New Mexico, it's back to the local team being AAA, but I'll stick with my Braves and Mariners. If it should ever happen that they would face each other in the WS, who would I root for? Unless one of the two has loaded up on individual players that I like a lot, I'll be pulling for the guys that won the WS the year I was born, (and that obviously would not be the Mariners). 

[OSJ]

Oh, and don't be the person that says "I don't have a favorite team, I just root for my favorite PLAYERS."  This is the sort of person who cheers for every out that the pitcher gets because he's one of their guys, except for when the #6 hitter is up, because he's an even more favorite player. Don't be this person, because these people are assholes who ought to be made to interview Tommy Lasorda with the stipulation that they only ask him questions about Dave Kingman.

[odessasteps]

I do think younger fans will be likely to follow a favorite player from team to team, rather than us old folks who just root for the laundry.