Woodruff wrote:thegreekdog wrote:Army of GOD wrote:I have been a Penguins, Broncos and Red Sox fan since the 90s
Wait a second...
Seriously dude. You are the definition of a bandwagon fan. All of teams were good and/or won championships at that period of time. Unless you have a good reason to be fans of those teams that have nothing to do with (1) their winning ways or (2) a player you like who is really awesome, then you are hereby shunned.
I'm not sure I agree with that logic. I am a Lakers fan back from the days of SHOWTIME! They certainly were "the shit" back then, and they haven't had a lot of awful seasons since...but I became a fan of them because of their STYLE of play. They were just plain fun to watch. Likewise, I have been a long-time fan of the baseball Cardinals, since the days of Whitey Herzog and the run and fun gang (and Ozzie Smith, the greatest defensive player of all time, shut up!). They likewise haven't had many awful seasons since then. I suppose to balance that out, I've been a football Cardinals fan since the days of Jim Hart...and they haven't had many winning seasons, and I was a bit of a Marlins fan when I lived in Florida and they had a minor league team in the town I lived in, so I was able to watch them grow a bit (this was in their very early days when they absolutely sucked...but Jeff Conine The Barbarian was a stud).
I have no problem bragging about my being a fan of any of those teams, and I don't consider myself a bandwagonner simply because, despite their long-time success, I have remained a fan over the long term.
Let's parse this out about. We'll start with the Lakers. I can only assume you're from the midwest (but correct me if I'm wrong). The Lakers are a bandwagon team, but you probably didn't have a viable option to choose from. Their "awful seasons" are few and far between so I'm not accepting that as legitimate. They went from Magic, Kareem, Worthy to Shaq and Kobe pretty quickly (if we compare to other basketball teams).
Cardinals make sense if you're from the midwest. I would also have accepted the Royals. I'm okay with the Marlins too, to an extent, especially since you're familiar with Jeff Conine.
Finally, on your last paragraph, if Nightstrike brags about the Cardinals or serbia brags about the Tigers, there is no response from anyone that could denigrate their bragging. When AoG brags about the Miami Heat or the Boston Red Sox, there is a response: it's "you're a bandwagoneer" and then he can be roundly ignored. In my opinion (biased though it is), part of being a sports fan is being invested in the team through good times and bad. I was proud in 2008 because I liked the Phillies since I was born and had to suffer through Rico Brogna being the savior at first base and the 1993 World Series (with my favorite player of all time, John Kruk) and Robert Person being the ace of the staff. I know a lot of players from those teams. Can AoG name ten Red Sox players from the early 1990s? Can AoG name the starting five for the Heat in 1998-1999? Then he didn't really suffer through those years; he just didn't watch his "favorite" teams. And then when they got good, he started being a huge fan.
There is a pecking order of sports fans. At the top of the pecking order is a person who likes every team from every sport in his hometown. That's me (they call me a "four for four guy" because I like the Phillies, Sixers, Flyers, and Eagles) and serbia and Night Strike. Next is the person who likes some teams from his town, but not all (e.g. my brother, who doesn't watch hockey, so doesn't root for the Flyers, but he roots for the other three major sports teams). Third on the list is the transitory person who doesn't really have a hometown option, but will root for teams in his current city (you may fall in here). Fourth is the guy who is from an area with major sports franchises (for example, AoG, from New York) who likes whatever team catches his fancy.