My Favorite Team is ---- and Whoever Plays ----

Well, my team is the St Louis Cardinals. Growing up in St Louis, it makes it obvious. So of course my most hated team is the Cubs. Kinda goes hand in hand.

I dont know if there are really a lot of teams that I hate. I used to kind of like the Bosox, but after they beat us in 2004, thier fans act like it is a birhtright that they should be considered the best team in baseball. I guess winning does that. And the fact that the Bobby Valentine press conference is on live TV on ESPN.

Yankees--Meh, tired of their overspending, but it is part of the game now, so I dont think I really hate them, but I root agaisnt them. I do hate Joba Chamberlain. Overrated. If his name was Bob and he played for Baltimore, 90% of us would have never heard of him.

Reds--Kinda hate them after they went overboard in their jealousy of the Cardinals in 2010. They seem to go way out of their way to show their displeasure with the Cardinals that year and it got old, so it was nice to see them crash and burn this year.

Brewers--Probably in the minority of Cardinal fans, but I dont mind them. Nyger Morgans antics were an embarrassment, but that doesnt take away what Braun and Fielder did for that team. They also have former Mizzou guy Marcum, and some other guys that seem pretty decent. And Morgan wont be wearing their uniform by the time 2012 closes so he is irrelevent.

I usually will hate a player before a team.

My favorite team is Baltimore Orioles, and whoever
is playing the Orioles after the All-Star break. That's when we are usually so far out of it that I
start hoping to optimize our draft spot.

Bi-Polar Baseball

Have been a Cardinals fan since they won the 1964 series when I was in kindergarten. Because of that series, I'm one of the very few people on HSBBWeb who tolerate Tim McCarver. We Cards fans are nothing if not loyal.

The Cubs and Cards have almost never been good at the same time, so I never considered them rivals. Besides, they never won much, they gave us Lou Brock, and they have that adorable little teddy bear mascot. Who could hate the poor guys?

The only exception is that I resent their unjust MVP awards. Despite the Cubs' last place finish, Andre Dawson got the MVP over Jack Clark in 1987 because the voters ignored the obvious fact that the Cubs could have finished in last with or without him. But when McGwire broke Maris's record and led the home run chase all summer, Sosa got the MVP nod. Suddenly, team success was the only factor that mattered, so much so that voters ignored that the Cards were in the wild card hunt until the last week. Other than those annoyances, the Cubs have mostly been irrelevant. Maybe Theo can create an enduring rivalry.

As a young boy, my most hated rival was the Giants, probably because my admiration of Bob Gibson caused me to repress acknowledging Juan Marichal's greatness. I made an exception and rooted for Willie Mays.

When I was a teen, I rooted for whoever played the Pirates because the 70's were a dark decade for the Cardinals. However, my animosity toward the Pirates has long since faded and been replaced by sadness and pity.

During the Whitey Ball era, the worst rivalries seemed to be internal.

More recently. Tony LaRussa seemed to have a marvelous knack for annoying rival fans, which created an interesting dynamic in the usually-weak NL Central. The Cards were usually competitive, and each year one NL Central team or another would unexpectedly rouse itself to respectability and suddenly direct all their pent up frustrations toward the Cardinals in general and TLR in particular. First the Astros, then the Reds, who got particularly nasty, and this year the Brewers. All those teams flamed out before they could create an enduring rivalry.

And so we remain, the only team that can claim to be 40% as successful as the Yankees.