With football about to start, and baseball in the heat of some pretty exciting pennant races, I thought I'd list the official sports teams of this blog. You are free to trash-talk if you dare.
Baseball -- the Angels. I can't be responsible for the absolutely ridiculous new name of the team ("the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim").
Teams I actively root against: Yankees, Milwaukee (because of Bud Selig), Dodgers.
Pro Football -- the Rams. Yes, even after they left Southern California. I loved the old helmet design, with the curved ram horns. Plus, the Rams team colors are the closest to my beloved Cal-Berkeley. . . .
Teams I actively root against: Raiders, 49ers.
College Football -- in order, the California Golden Bears, the UCLA Bruins, and the Iowa Hawkeyes. Cal, because I got two degrees there and I loved the five years I spent there; UCLA, because I grew up in L.A. and they were the team I rooted for; and Iowa, because that's who I work for. So, I root for UCLA except when they play Cal; and I root for Iowa, unless they play Cal or UCLA.
Teams I actively root against: USC Trojans, Oklahoma Sooners, Miami Hurricanes, Florida State Seminoles, Nebraska Cornhuskers, Michigan Wolverines. . . . Pretty much all the bully schools that beat up everyone else. [I should quickly add that my rooting against these schools pertains only to their football teams, and not their academic institutions.]
Update (9/4): PBO reminds me in the comments that I forgot to add Stanford to the list of teams I root against. How could I have forgotten Cal's #1 rival/enemy?!?
Hockey -- not my sport, but if I followed it, my team would be the Mighty Ducks.
Basketball -- also not my sport, but I followed it, my team would be Clippers -- I seem to have a thing for the bad Southern California teams. . . . (Yes, the Angels did win the World Series in 2002, which is 14 years more recently than the Dodgers, but until then, the Angels were the weaker team. And the Rams . . . . does the name Jim Everett ring any bells?)
If you like the Rams because of their helmet design, why do you not also root for Colorado State? And how can you root for California and yet not root against Stanford?
Posted by: PBO | September 04, 2005 at 08:02 PM
What happened to the Tigers? And didn't you actually root *for* the Dodgers at some point? I seem to remember that you couldn't shut up about Kirk Gibson.
Hm. If I keep this up, you're going to ban me from this blog :)
Posted by: L | September 05, 2005 at 02:08 AM
Do you mean "Chris" Everett?
Posted by: Steven Taylor | September 05, 2005 at 10:13 AM
Prof. Yin,
ROFL at the new name for the Angels. And Go Bears!
Posted by: ILG | September 05, 2005 at 01:53 PM
L: Regarding the Dodgers, (1) I was younger; and (2) that was 1988 and my chance to go to the World Series (you'll recall that I started to root for the A's because I had tickets to game 7 as well as game 2).
Regarding the Tigers, yes, I liked them during the Alan Trammell-Lou Whittaker-Kirk Gibson era. But the Angels have always been my team, even though they play a pretty stupid style of baseball.
Steven: Was it "Chris" or "Chrissie"? I wonder how many blog readers remember seeing that ridiculous scene?
Posted by: Tung Yin | September 06, 2005 at 07:57 AM
My contention is that the Hawkeyes will win a national championship in football before either UCLA or Cal.
If Iowa played UCLA in the Rose Bowl with the national championship on the line, would you really affirmately root against the Hawks?
Posted by: Mark | September 06, 2005 at 12:24 PM
If Iowa played UCLA in the Rose Bowl with the national championship on the line, would you really affirmately root against the Hawks?
Mark, if the Chicago Cubs were to play the Florida Marlins in the NLCS, would you root for the Marlins just because you happen to be working in Miami?
Posted by: Tung Yin | September 06, 2005 at 01:16 PM
You say you don't like bully teams, but what about UCLA? Time was they were one of the biggest bully teams in college football, loaded up with talent and pummeling Ohio State or Michigan in the Rose Bowl every year. Or does your moratorium on cheering for bullies stop when the team starts to suck beyond belief, like UCLA does these days?
My favorite team....whatever school is named on top of my paycheck. So, go Hawks! Call me a whore, I don't care.
Mighty Ducks? Really?
Posted by: tom | September 06, 2005 at 01:49 PM
So, if someone were to offer you tickets to the World Series of the Dodgers make it there, that would make
you a Dodgers fan again? Sounds like a pretty low
threshold :)
P.S. It was "Chris"
Posted by: L | September 06, 2005 at 02:31 PM
Of course not! And thanks for conjuring up memories of Game 6 (the Bartman Game) -- I was there!
Still, my civic pride in Miami isn't quite the same as your loyalty to your employer. Being a law professor at the University of Iowa, you're not just a fan of Kirk Ferentz and the Iowa football program -- you're virtually a colleague.
That said, if the Chicago Cubs were playing my law firm's softball team, I'd definitely have some conflict-of-interest issues.
Posted by: Mark | September 06, 2005 at 03:24 PM