The hometown team

Now…just a little on the lighter side…

Sometimes people who know me, and know I love baseball are somewhat shocked when they ask me, who my favorite team is. They usually know that nearly my entire family (on my wife’s side) are MAJOR LA Angels Fans…but while I do follow them, and once considered them my “favorite,” they no longer are. I really now consider the Arizona Diamondbacks as my favorite baseball team…I mean even last year when the Angels came into town to play a couple of inter-league games, much to the chagrin of my wife and in-laws, I couldn’t help but to pull for the D-Backs.

Here is the way I look at it…throughout my life I really haven’t had a “hometown” as in where I was from, only where I currently was. I mean…my dad was military, and while we didn’t move a lot compared to most in the military, we did move a couple of times….My folks were from Iowa, but I was born in California, moved to Massachussetts at 5 and Virginia at 9. I stayed in VA until I left college…and since then I have moved even more…Tennessee for 8 months, New Jersey for 2 yrs, Virginia (a different part of the state) for another 5 years, onto Utah for a year…California again for 2-1/2 years, and now Arizona for nearly 3 years. I have been all over the place…and never long enough to create a long-lasting relationship with any professional team. So, I see no issue at all with rooting for the hometown team…wherever my hometown currently is.

I mean, if I go to a ball game, it is going to be a Diamondbacks ball game (unless during spring training) and where my office is, I look upon Chase Field (the D-Backs home stadium) every day. While I may say my “favorite” team is the DBacks, my 1st love in the game is truly the game itself. I don’t really care who is playing. If I am watching, I am just hopping for a good game. And I prefer the low scoring pitchers duals…or games with a lot of “small-ball” play. Home runs are fine, but I like the strategy of the “get ‘em on, get ‘em over, get ‘em in” kind of ball – the bunt, the steal, the hit-and-run – or the well placed pitch kind of baseball the best. Most of the time when it is a slugfest, it is a very one dimensional game….not a lot of thought provoking “what should they do here” kind of stuff.

So, my apologies to my family in California, to my friends with long-standing single team affiliations, or all others who may be offended by my willingness to move teams so frequently (in my years I have followed the Dodgers, the Yankees, the Angels, and now the DBacks). But, when I can hear about a team everyday on the radio, read about it in the local paper, and become so much more affiliated with them than any other team at the time, I will always be drawn to the local team wherever I live…I am NOT a “fair-weather” fan…I am just a current hometown team fan. Go D-Backs!

And this goes for football, too. Go Cardinals, bet the Saints on Saturday!!