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What justifies fandom?


BlueSky

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I think it's a lot of things to different people. For me, I'm a Rangers fan first and foremost because I grew up with the 90's teams that won the West. My first sports experience was when I was two, and Nolan Ryan kicked mud up in the bullpen in warmups, and having it land in my face. From then on out, I've rooted for the Rangers through thick and thin.

For my other teams, I root for the Texans because they are our alternative to the Cowboys, I root for the Stars because they play in Dallas, and I root for the Hornets because they are an alternative to the sorry work of the Mavericks. I guess it's different strokes for different folks.

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When I was four or five, my parents bought me a Patriots hat. It had these crazy red lightning bolts on it. It was awesome. I thought the logo was the coolest thing ever. And to seal the deal, their quarterback, Drew Bledsoe, shared my name. For the first few years of my self-aware life, I was a Patriots fan. However, familial ties eventually lead to me forsaking the Pats for the enemy Dolphins. Of course this immediately preceded the Patriots winning the Super Bowl multiple times :P But I have stuck with the Fish through this tumultuous decade and don't intend on abandoning them.

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I am a fan based mostly on location. I love the Pack, the Brew-Crew, and the Badgers. I root for Marquette basketball as well, unless they are playing my Cardinal and White.

I've always been a fan of hockey but never had an NHL team to root for. Its hard for me to root for teams from Minnesota, Chicago, Detroit because of all the rivalry between WI and these locations. Then one July day in 2005 the Pittsburgh Penguins drafted a guy by the name of Sidney Crosby. I didn't know much about him, or the Penguins, but I knew he was good and that we shared a surname. I began following the Pens and am now a diehard fan. I think Crosby is good, but definitely not worthy of a lot of his praise. I can not get enough Pittsburgh Penguins though. It's hard to explain to people here in Wisconsin that I am not a fair weather fan, as they've done pretty darn well the last few years. I plan on staying a Penguins fan even if Wisconsin ever (hopefully) gets a team. I will be a fan of both, but a Pens fan first.

Just thought this was a strange situation of fandom you might enjoy.

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I was born & raised in Warwick, Rhode Island, yet I don't root for the New England teams. I'm a Kansas City Royals fan (I even took a plane trip out to see them in Missouri), and a Pittsburgh Steelers fan. I actually have an unprecedented loathing of the Patriots. I have no idea what sparked it; I tried to turn myself into a Patriots fan when I was first watching football, and just came to hate them. Then they played the Steelers, and the rest is history. Heck, I was a Red Sox fan when I was a little girl (in a family of all Yankees fans, which went over well), and then one day when I watched them play the Royals I fell in love with a few players, and eventually the whole team. Thus, eclipsing & eventually eradicating my Red Sox allegiance. The NHL, I have no set team for, and truth be told, I don't even watch basketball.

I agree that a fan is someone who has loyalty to their team; you can't just give up on them because they do badly one season, and fall back in love when they go on to win a title. However, I don't agree that their loyalty should be shown to the team closest to them. I've been called a terrible New Englander for conspiring against the Patriots. However, if you followed the theory that loyalty is based on root, root, rooting for the home team, if they don't win it's a shame ---- then what happens to those people who move a lot? They're not allowed to have a consistent team at all.

Whatever the reason someone decides to follow a team, whether its their uniforms, talent, their neat logo --- I support it. There's no deciding who you'll follow like a die-hard. It just sort of happens.

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One of my best friends in high school was born in St. Louis and started liking the Rams when they were in LA because he thought they had the coolest helmets. Imagine how bad he LOST IT when he found out they were moving.

I knew a guy that was a huge Cleveland Browns fan. As far as I know, he never lived in or had ties with the city of Cleveland. He moved around a lot, and finally settled down in the Baltimore area at the end of his life. Yet when the Browns moved to Baltimore he refused to root for them. In fact he hated the Ravens as if he was from Cleveland. I'm not sure if that was because he knew Cleveland would be getting an expansion team in a few years or not. But I have to respect him for staying loyal to the city over the team. I'm not trying to call your friend out or anyone else. Just found it interesting since you don't see that kind of loyalty with "foreign" fans.

I also have an extreme hatred of the New York Yankees and the New York Giants, the Yankees hatred started when I was younger. People used to tell me I should be a Yankees fan since they are in NYS. Buffalo is closer to Camden Yards than Yankee Stadium, albeit by a small amount, 374 miles vs. 363 miles

Wow I would have never guessed that was the case. Heck I'm closer to Yankee Stadium than you. Have you ever visited Camden Yards?

I've been to Camden twice, most recently in July for a game vs. the Blue Jays. I've been to Old Yankee Stadium once, the worst game I've been to, an 11-0 Yankees win over the Angles.

There are plenty of teams closer to me (Orchard Park, NY) than the Yankees, not just the Orioles.

Blue Jays-111 miles

Indians-187 miles

Pirates-212 miles

Tigers-273 miles

Orioles-363 miles

Phillies-374 miles

Yankees-374 miles

Nationals-377 miles

Mets-381 miles

Very interesting. Sometimes I "justified" my fandom of Western Michigan football by pointing out that they, and not Wisconsin are technically the closest FBS school in proximity to Milwaukee. That's not the case if you drive there (unless you could somehow drive over Lake Michigan), but it's still a weird statistical oddity worth noting.

As a sidenote, Kalamazoo's proximity to Milwaukee had far-reaching implications in the early days of television. Originally, it was planned that in the three largest markets (New York, Chicago and LA), CBS would be channel 2, NBC would be channel 4 and ABC would be channel 7. Milwaukee's NBC affiliate, WTMJ was originally assigned to channel 3, but began to have interference problems when WWMT signed on to channel 3 in Kalamazoo. WTMJ was hastily assigned to channel 4 to avoid this, but ended up causing interference themselves with Chicago's NBC affiliate, WMAQ. Eventually, WMAQ was assigned to channel 5, which to this day remains the only quirk in the original plan.

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