I hate when Californians support out-of-state teams.
Our great state is full of great franchises, both professional and collegiate.
It doesn’t matter what background you come from, black or white, hippy or redneck, we should all support California teams first and foremost.
I can’t stand it when someone from Los Angeles roots for a team like the Dallas Cowboys or someone in Oakland supports the Boston Celtics.
It boggles my mind that someone can get into a team that is based 4,000 miles away from where they sleep.
Me? Lakers, Raiders, and Dodgers.
All three, when I first understood sports and team affiliation, were less than 200 miles away from my house.
That should be the limit.
Unless you’ve relocated, there should be a 200-mile limit.
Forget book burning. Let’s burn out-of-state baseball caps.
When going out for a beer at Firehouse to watch my Raiders try to stay competitive, it’s hard for me to hear myself think with all the Cowboys fans erupting every time the team gets two or more yards.
If everyone would just root for the same teams, everyone would be screaming in unison and I wouldn’t miss any part of the game or my conversation because I’d be screaming at the same time.
Would you root for a sports team out of the country over an NBA team?
I didn’t think so.
In America, where our states are so close to being their own countries (especially California), how could you not root against a team from Arizona, New York or Boston?
Rooting for teams outside the 200-mile limit can also make one susceptible to wagon hopping.
No one can say they have strong loyalty if they are rooting for a team that doesn’t represent their home and California is our home people.
So I hate the Chargers and everything that they represent, including their fans, but at least they’re rooting for a local team.
I can’t stand all the Bronco stickers I see on cars in Bakersfield.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d hate seeing Donco stickers even if I was in Denver. In fact, it’d probably make me sick, but it’s much worse when that person grew up a drive away from three or four other teams.
It isn’t that there aren’t good teams in California, either.
Yeah, Bay Area football has been bad lately, but it’s on the up nowadays. And the Lakers were two-time world champions just six months ago. Even though I hate them, the Giants just brought some more hardware to the Golden State just over a year ago.
And we’re not just blessed with success either; the tradition runs deep in every team in California (with the exception of the Chargers, maybe). Think about the Dodgers-Giants rivalry; the Raiders and the 49ers and their traditions of winning. Even the Lakers and Clippers and how one team has dominated it for so many years can be considered deep rooted in tradition.
My point is, any Californian who doesn’t support the state’s teams, I have a hard time respecting him/her, which works out perfectly because the majority of Cowboy fans are totally full of themselves anyway.