Cubs = Love. When I married, I kind of married into the Cubs despite being far from Wrigley. My husband has been a Cubs fan since he was a teen watching the '84 Cubs on WGN from the comfort of his home in provincial Alabama.
His love of the Cubs I think is the manifestation of some sort of deep-seated self-hate. So instead of cutting himself, he inflicts a sort of fan self-mutilation every year, starting during the Hot Stove discussions in December and lasting until the Cubs are mathematically eliminated from contention, swept out of the first round of playoffs, or in the case of 2003, heartbreakingly ball-crushed by fate. So it's a love/hate relationship. We love the spring with the ever-blossoming of Cubbie hope, and hate the bleak fall which signals the death of all World Series hopes.
With all the money they spend year after year, there's no excuse for this team to fall short year after year. In order for this team to win it all, the curse hype machine needs to die down. I as a fan am tired of hearing it year after year.
Indians = Love. This is my dad's team, and also the only team he ever saw in person. So I feel partial to them because of those family roots. The Indians, however, are almost as snakebit as the Cubs, with their own heartbreaks in 1995 and 2007, falling to the hated Atlanta Braves in the '95 World Series and the Boston Red Sox in the '07 ALCS. A smallish market team in a region hit hard by the collapse of the American auto industry, they don't really have much hope of winning it all by throwing money at their problems the way the Cubs/Red Sox/Yankees do. However, I think any team (except the Nationals) has a decent shot at winning it all just by playing decent ball in a mediocre division, and then getting red-hot during the playoffs. Just look at the Cardinals in '06.
His love of the Cubs I think is the manifestation of some sort of deep-seated self-hate. So instead of cutting himself, he inflicts a sort of fan self-mutilation every year, starting during the Hot Stove discussions in December and lasting until the Cubs are mathematically eliminated from contention, swept out of the first round of playoffs, or in the case of 2003, heartbreakingly ball-crushed by fate. So it's a love/hate relationship. We love the spring with the ever-blossoming of Cubbie hope, and hate the bleak fall which signals the death of all World Series hopes.
With all the money they spend year after year, there's no excuse for this team to fall short year after year. In order for this team to win it all, the curse hype machine needs to die down. I as a fan am tired of hearing it year after year.
Indians = Love. This is my dad's team, and also the only team he ever saw in person. So I feel partial to them because of those family roots. The Indians, however, are almost as snakebit as the Cubs, with their own heartbreaks in 1995 and 2007, falling to the hated Atlanta Braves in the '95 World Series and the Boston Red Sox in the '07 ALCS. A smallish market team in a region hit hard by the collapse of the American auto industry, they don't really have much hope of winning it all by throwing money at their problems the way the Cubs/Red Sox/Yankees do. However, I think any team (except the Nationals) has a decent shot at winning it all just by playing decent ball in a mediocre division, and then getting red-hot during the playoffs. Just look at the Cardinals in '06.Braves = Hate. There's no worse fans on earth than Braves fans. Okay, maybe that's hyperbole. At least Braves fans don't kill people when their team fails. They would never do that because that would involve more passion than any Braves fan has for their team. Or more passion than the Braves announcing teams have for the team. I swear, for those insomniacs out there, there's nothing more sleep-inducing than a Braves telecast.
I once heard a Braves fan declare that if the team didn't make it to the World Series this year, she would stop being a fan. That's a poor excuse for fandom. Someone who would wear their team's hat the day after they've been eliminated from contention? That's a real fan, and that's something Braves fans aren't capable of.
I don't just hate the Braves because of their lousy fans. I also hate that the only World Series they've won in modern times was against the '95 Indians. And I think the Tomahawk Chop is insipid and annoying.
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