dear lebron james,

[TheNoodleMan]

Front runners, band wagoners and anyone else who constantly changes their "favorite" teams don't really bother me that much. They are only robbing themselves of the greater emotional payoff of sticking with a team for the long haul.

I understand Kyelbs point about not wanting to put up with bad management, but I view it more like a family member who is a [censored] up. You don't give up on them and hopefully they'll turn it around.

[ADLinden]

i could never root for anyone other than cleveland, dunno how people just pick random teams, seems weird to me i dunno, maybe im just lucky that i have 3 pro teams in my home town

[FlyWf]

People who like the Yankees who aren't physically located in NY are evil incarnate.

Lebron's frontrunning sickens and disgusts me. I can see taking a pass on the Browns, the Modell thing happened in his formative years.

I also have a ton of teams I like/hate, and my reason for liking/disliking a given team can be incredibly superficial. I don't even know why I like the Padres, but they are my adopted NL team. I have like 4 or 5 teams per sport(except for college football, where I have a complicated conference-based rooting interest system).

But there, above all, I root for the teams closest to where I was born. Cavs, Browns, Tribe. The end. I [censored] hate the Browns, but come Sunday I root for them to win.

You can't be born in the Gaza Strip and decide that you'd rather root for the IDF. <- racism ban?

[MikeyPatriot]

[ QUOTE ]
I understand Kyelbs point about not wanting to put up with bad management, but I view it more like a family member who is a [censored] up. You don't give up on them and hopefully they'll turn it around.

[/ QUOTE ]

Meh. With free agency, it's much easier to be (or not be) fans of individual players, GMs, etc. For instance, the White Sox brought in Darin Erstad this year. I will not cheer for Darin Erstad simply because he wears a White Sox jersey. In fact, I boo'd his ass from day one and will continue to do so until the Sox get their head out of their ass and release him. Non-FA eligible players get a free pass because unless they are just horrendously bad, there's always some value in having guys making near the league minimum on the roster.

[MikeyPatriot]

[ QUOTE ]
You can't be born in the Gaza Strip and decide that you'd rather root for the IDF. <- racism ban?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, this is pretty relevant to choosing which sports teams you root for.

[vhawk01]

[ QUOTE ]
I guess I don't really understand going into a season rooting for a team because you like how the GM drafts or because the new OC brought in the run-n-shoot.

I'm sure on the surface it's great because "your team" is winning the championship every 3 years.

[/ QUOTE ]

I guess I don't understand rooting for a team because they wear blue and red.

[FlyWf]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I guess I don't really understand going into a season rooting for a team because you like how the GM drafts or because the new OC brought in the run-n-shoot.

I'm sure on the surface it's great because "your team" is winning the championship every 3 years.

[/ QUOTE ]

I guess I don't understand rooting for a team because they wear blue and red.

[/ QUOTE ]

Communist

[vhawk01]

[ QUOTE ]
Front runners, band wagoners and anyone else who constantly changes their "favorite" teams don't really bother me that much. They are only robbing themselves of the greater emotional payoff of sticking with a team for the long haul.

I understand Kyelbs point about not wanting to put up with bad management, but I view it more like a family member who is a [censored] up. You don't give up on them and hopefully they'll turn it around.

[/ QUOTE ]

You have huge emotionalEV swings, both positive and negative. I have smaller ones, probably (although I don't know if thats necessarily true) but I rarely have any negative ones. I'm not sure why yours is the better strategy.

And really, its a bold assertion to even claim your huge emotional payoff is anything greater than what mine is. People are only capable of certain amounts of joy, and it doesn't really take that much to max out on it. So I'm absolutely thrilled when a team I like wins something. Same as you are. I have no idea why you think your enjoyment is so much greater.

[vhawk01]

[ QUOTE ]
i could never root for anyone other than cleveland, dunno how people just pick random teams, seems weird to me i dunno, maybe im just lucky that i have 3 pro teams in my home town

[/ QUOTE ]

Its just different strokes. I could never root for a team that constantly made mistakes and showed absolutely no respect for their fans. MANY franchises do exactly this. I couldn't look myself in the mirror if I continued to line their pockets. You can. No big deal. I don't think you are any less of a fan because of this, I don't think you enjoy sports any less than I do. You might, who knows, but you probably enjoy it just about as much as I do.

[wisehandpoker]

I think those of you who are calling the non-New York-based Yankee lovers evil incarnate are being a little short-sighted.

My dad was born and raised in Toronto and spent his whole life here, but was a Yankee fan until the day he died. Anyone who grew up with baseball in the fifties had ties to either the Yanks, Dodgers or Giants, because expansion had kept the game de-regionalized and the New York teams were at the top of any baseball news reporting source. New York was the center of the world.

It's entirely plausible that Lebron has a family member who taught him to be a yankees fan, or he just attached himself to their winning mystique in the mid-to-late nineties, when they just played the game better and more appropriately than anyone else (qualitied leBron could relate to). Hell, I'm a jays fan and have to face the sons of bitches too many times a year and look at them hovering over us in the standings, but despite that I respect the hell out of those nineties championship clubs.

Take it easy on the guy. He's a fantastic athelete, but he's still a human being with the biases that come with it.