Living in South Florida but having grown up in Chicago made the Bears @ Dolphins game last night all the more sweet. When I moved down in 2003 all I heard was "why are you routing for ... you live in Florida now." Really? I was born in Chicago, lived there basically till I left for grad school and now I'm just supposed to give up my allegiances? Their replies were always the same, "Yeah. You live here now. You should have to root for our teams." Nice logic, but teams suck.
Granted Chicago has fielded some of the worst teams in their respected sports during my life time, but there were the '85 Bears, '05 Sox, '10 Blackhawks and of course the 6-pack that Jordan gave the city. And two championships by the Sting in the now defunct North American Soccer League. That's really not that bad when it comes to championships. When I first moved here the Cubs and Marlins were going head to head for the NLCS. If it weren't for some bad pitching mistakes, those idiots could have possibly ended 90+ years of futility. But no. Let's all blame some nerd who really didn't even touch a ball for cursing the team. Heck it was really Pat Looney; a Chicago firefighter who went running for the firehouse across the street for safety, leaving Bartman to be the goat.
I spent a lot of great afternoons out in the $3.00 bleachers at Wrigley. I talked to the late great Harry Carey one drunken afternoon there too. Heck, I even saw him personally carry 2 cases of Bud up the old stairs to the broadcast booth one afternoon that I should have still been at school. Now my Floridian friends are all demanding I just forsake my time spent at Wrigley, Soldier, Comiskey and the old Stadium just because I have a different zip code. If that's not being fickle I don't know what is.
I can see their point for wanting more fans though, as Florida is a transient state. With all the people coming and going it's tough to get a solid fan base to fill the stadiums. Of course the "die-hard" Marlin fans that were all enjoying the Cubs futility that year never filled their stadium again after that. So much for their fandom.
I would always counter the argument with, "So if you moved, you wouldn't be a Dolphins/ whatever fan any more?" Of course to drive home their point they'd all answer along the lines of, "Yeah. Wherever you are, you should be a fan of the local teams." Let's let that soak in a minute... OK... What a load of *^&#! To counter them I offered, "OK, so let's say that for whatever reason, let's say a family member needs long term, like life long medical attention and it can only be received in say Boston, or New York. And for whatever reason you feel that you absolutely had to be there. There is no getting out of it. It wouldn't even occur to you that moving there for the rest of your life wasn't an option... you'd give up your Dolphin jersey and become a Pat's or duh-duh-duh... a JETS fan?"
Let's let that stew for a few moments shall we? What would you do? Hum..... According to you, by your rules you'd have to be a JETS fan! J-E-T-S, JETS! JETS! JETS! Can you really see yourself doing that?
Some would try to cut me off, "That'll never happen." "No, you can get health care... blah, blah, blah." I wouldn't let them avoid the question, but it's funny that none of them ever coped to the fact that they wouldn't give up their fandom. The best they could do was say, "I'd be a Giants fan." Yeah right. All you do is talk about how great the AFC is and how lame the NFC is and now you're going to give that up? I call shenanigans!
So lets flashback to the '85 Bears again who were one stinking game away from perfection. One game to finally shut up the stupid Dolphin fans who say there the only team to go undefeated (on a shorter schedule, but they overlook that). One loss in Miami and all those idiot '72 Dolphins were able to crack their annoying bottle of champagne after the game... Ironically, had the Bears won that game they would have gone 16-0, which if you're a Dolphin fan you didn't stay up for or left the stadium early to the raucous Bears fans, was the score of last nights game. Ahh... so much for Miami fandom. Yeah... I think I'll switch.
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