ogc thoughts
So this is the order I place the team ranked by past encounters and feelings.
- Orioles: If you can't root for the Orange and Black, then you can root for the Orange and Black
- Royals: We gave them Dirty.
- Tigers: I'll throw them a bone since we beat them before
- Nats: Got nothing against them, though I lower them because they purposefully lost a lot of games to get Strasburg and Harper. They couldn't be satisfied with one, no, so I don't want to reward them
- Pirates: We owed them for 1971, I thought that was no big deal at the time, it was my first year as a fan, but as the years of playoff-less seasons ensued, that made the pain all the more powerful. (Post-win note: this equal things, I guess)
- Cards: We owed them a lot over the years and we did beat them lately, but their guy hurt Scutaro enough sliding hard that we probably have two years of zero production. Plus there was Cepeda and 1987. Also, they just win and win.
- Angels: 2002. Rally Monkey. Money coming out of ears.
- A's: Their fans are evil, giving me 40 years of abuse until 2010, and then there was 1989.
- Dodgers: They are EVIL, end of story
Of course, rooted for Giants over Pirates (Yay!) and Royals over A's (Yay!).
ReplyDeleteFor this round:
Giants over Nats (of course)
Cards over Dodgers (of course)
Royals over Angels
Orioles over Tigers
100%, OGC.
DeleteI was going to include in my original text the following thoughts, as I was ruminating over this at the airport but forgot about it when I posted this.
ReplyDeleteBeing a relatively friendly guy, if I could have just enjoyed baseball for itself when I was growing up and an adult, I probably would be one of those split Giants/A's cap wearers, and probably could have been one early on.
But fan rivalry being what they are, and me living in A's country growing up, I was regularly ragged on about my being a Giants fan, especially as they won those championships in the 70's. And I did root for them then, I watched the series where Tenace's sudden offensive outburst won them that series, plus all the great pitching that they had as well as Reggie. But it wasn't really that, though I have heard it from A's fans all the time and have to see it every time I opened up Barry Zito's players page, some A's fan bragged about their championships and how we had none, and how we would trade our park and everything for the A's championship, rubbing it in.
There were also the billboards that the A's used to buy at the Bay Bridge, using various ways to inform the public that the A's have all the championships and the Giants had none, and that is probably what was a major force in making me switch to an A's hater.
1989 didn't help either, but I've always been a fan realist, I knew my Giants were going into that short of the pitching necessary to match up Stewart and their other good pitcher, I was only hoping that the Giants could win one of games 3 and 4 so that I could bring my Uncle, who has been great for us over the years, through my Dad's death, and just being there for us, to a World Series game, so I was unhappy that the Earthquake resulted in the Commissioner being stupid (I'll always hate him for that) and allowing the A's to throw their two best pitchers at us again.
And, after recently learning that Fay actually was battling SF over when the games would be played - he wanted to start early instead of waiting, while the SF Mayor told him that would be stupid (and it would have been) - he probably did this out of spite, to crush the Giants chances of doing anything in the series.
And then there was that obnoxious A's fan babbling on about how many trophies are at the Coliseum (and getting the number wrong, I mean, I knew immediately that he was wrong, some fan...) while I was trying to enjoy getting to view the Giants first championship trophy. That didn't help either.
So I guess ultimately, it was all those Zito ads, on top of the A's billboards, that just got me to be a non-A's supporter.