my new favorite team

Nine times out of ten, my motivation for doing anything is: spite.  There's no better way to illustrate this than to describe how the Boston Red Sox became my least favorite sports team of all time.

I'm not really a baseball fan.  I enjoy baseball, I guess, in the same way that I enjoy the Olympics; I like the concept in general and I enjoy watching every once in a while, but I'm glad it doesn't occupy too much of my time.  I pay just enough attention to know basically what's going on because it feels like at least that much is required of a "sports fan."

I am, however, an avid football fan.  Earlier this decade, the New England Patriots cheated their way to a couple of Super Bowl victories and a whole crowd of douchey Massholes crawled out from under the rocks they'd been using for shelter.  They started talking about the Patriots as a "dynasty" despite that the team had only - at the time - two good seasons.  A few of them even went so far, in 2004 mind you, to label the Patriots the "team of the decade."  We all know that's ridiculous.  Everybody knows the Pittsburgh Steelers, who just so happen to be the team I root for, are the team of the decade.  Somehow, the mouth-breathing neanderthals in Massachussets gruntedly loudly enough that the national sports media noticed their bullshit claim and began lavishing undue attention on the Patriots.  They - the Pats - began turning up on those nationally televised late Sunday and prime-time games, taking some of the exposure which the Steelers so richly deserved.  So I got to watch my team less, and what coverage I did get fawned over a lesser team.  This situation affected me personally; the Patriots actually made my life worse.  So, naturally, I fucking loathe the New England Patriots.

This is where it starts to get a little complicated.  Because I hate the Patriots so much, I am obligated by spite to hate the Red Sox even more.  I know that every single Patriot fan would happily watch the Patriots go winless for the rest of time if that resulted in a World Series victory for the Red Sox.  I have to hate the Red Sox more than the Patriots because all the Pats fans love the Red Sox more.  So the Red Sox are my least favorite sports team of all time.  It makes perfect sense.

But I've noticed something a little strange happening over the past few years.  I despise the Red Sox so much that subconsciously, I've wanted the New York Yankees to do well.  You see, Red Sox fans hate the Yankees.  They chant "Yankees suck!" at the NFL Draft.  (This is more evidence, by the way, that Sawx fans are retarded and that I am right to hate them more.)  Every Yankee victory hurts a Red Sox fan deep in the most primative quadrants of his unenlightened simian brain (even though he will never know why), and that gives me great pleasure.  Lately I have told a few people that "I hate the Red Sox so much that I am practically a Yankee fan."  It was only last week that I realized that statement was actually true.

So consider this my official coming out as a fan of the New York Yankees.  I didn't have an axe to grind in the MLB anyway, so why not the Yankees?  They fit all my criteria.  They have a long and storied history of winning a lot.  Rooting against their chief rival is easy.  Jerry Hairston, Jr. is on their roster.  But perhaps best of all, my very first act as an official Yankee fan is that I get to root for them to reduce Cap'n Crunch to a whimpering and pathetic heap.  Yes, I would enjoy Cappy's devastation very much.  That, there, is just the kind of personal connection that makes sports so much fun.