I had dinner with a close friend of mine here in Ithaca tonight. His wife and daughter and son and new baby (three and a half months) and I chilled out in the cool evening breeze. We have been lucky these last few days in Ithaca - there has been a lot of rain and the temperatures have become mild - 60s at night, 70s during the day. My friend's son is a huge huge super huge NBA fan. We got to talking about sports and he asked me who my second favorite NFL team was. That was really hard. My guesses would be Seattle and Minnesota - two perennial underdogs. Maybe that’s why I liked them.
A few weeks back I was talking to Dave – who is from Vermont and is also a very big sox fan about teams and favorites within MLB. I had actually been thinking about that a lot, especially with all of the inter-league games going on. So tonight I’ve compiled a list of favorite teams, by league and by division and then from top to bottom. In any head to head meetings the higher on the list the more I favor them.
AL East (Home Division)
- Boston (of course)
- Baltimore (just for a change of pace)
- Toronto (first non-fenway park I visited was skydome)
- Tampa Bay (could care less, just as the ownership)
- New York (of course)
AL Central (Two teams I really like to see compete, another that can't compete, and two that are all talk)
- White Sox (mr. smith, its been too damn long)
- Twinnies (santana, aaron gleeman, hankees, beating the A's)
- Kansas City (ms. richards, first park out of the east I saw at night from I-70)
- Tigers (current home of carlos pena - from NU!)
- Cleveland (Cleveland sux!)
AL West (I hope a Seattle team in any sport can win a championship someday, beyond the WNBA that is - Oop!)
- SEATTLE (Underdogs for life, Pilots, Amy B., MS/Real buddies, Ichiro in the postseason)
- ANAHEIM (Thanks for winning!)
- TEXAS (cursed by a-rod)
- OAKLAND (Moneyball losers)
NL East (3 teams I'd love to see win and 2 I'd hate to see win)
- Philly (my good friend Joe F. was from Philly, do it for Bowa!)
- Washington (The commisioner wanted to fold this team!)
- NY Mets (I can forgive '86, go Mets!)
- Braves (making history, but who cares? - sorry dustin)
- Florida (blah, thanks for beating the yankees, but I didn't watch a single minute of the series)
NL Central (After the cubs and that little team from Wisconsin I could totally care less)
- Cubs (please let them win!)
- Brewers (fan of an underdog)
- Reds (whatever)
- Pirates (whatever)
- Astros (whatever)
- St. Louis (maybe I don't like teams that win so much...)
NL West (So many good teams and that triple A club in denver)
- San Diego (do it for '98!)
- Arizona (thanks for 2001 memories)
- LA (can depodesta do anything?)
- SF (so close to the WS win, no longer a fan on Bonds)
- Colorado (whatever / irrelevant)
My overall rankings (wow this is harder than it looks):
- Boston
- Cubs
- White Sox
- San Diego
- Philly
- Washington
- Twinnies
- SEATTLE
- NY Mets
- ANAHEIM
- Arizona
- Baltimore
- Brewers
- LA
- Kansas City
- Toronto
- SF
- TEXAS
- Tigers
- Cleveland
- Tampa Bay
- OAKLAND
- Reds (whatever)
- Pirates (whatever)
- Astros (whatever)
- St. Louis
- Braves
- Florida
- Colorado (whatever / irrelevant)
- New York