Who's Your Baseball Team?

[EarlJam]

I'd like to get a snapshot of the baseball fan base around here. My gut tells me that Atlanta or the Yanks would be first, followed by the Red Sox.

I wonder if there are any fans of teams yet to be discussed here, like sayyyyyyyyyyyy, the Tampa Bay Deviled Eggs.

Please chime in and tell us your favorite team. At the conclusion of this mini-survey, I will develop a very colorful, easy-to-read, and informative pie chart in PowerPoint and share it with all of you. It will be so much fun your pants will just burst into flames.

Okay, here it go....

1. EarlJam - Baltimore Orioles


-EarlJam

[riverside6]

Cubs

[duke74]

Metsies! (Ouch)

[toughbuff1]

Orioles

[captmojo]

Bravos. Where's Dale Murphy when you need him? Oh yeah,the slider got him. Sorry.

[Channing]

Braves!

[Tommac]

Yankees, then Braves.

[Bluedawg]

http://www.dawsonstudentsjr.com/Parents/3ADBDA24-6E32-49AD-8B7A-7EF8AC85258E_files/atlanta-braves-logo.png

http://www.cartoonstock.com/newscartoons/cartoonists/tbr/lowres/tbrn35l.jpg

[DevilAlumna]

I root, root, root for the hometeam! Problem is, I move around a fair amount.

So, I cheer for the M's, the O's (the Nat's weren't there when I left), the Braves, and the Cubs (Nebraska loyalties split with them and the Royals.) And the Durham Bulls, though they're harder to follow. :D

[DukeDude]

Phillies! It's like cheering for Duke football.

[Windsor]

I grew up north of New York City....my mother had a Mickey Mantle scrapbook....no shock I'm a huge Yankee fan (whose husband is Cleveland native and Indians fan...so tonight I will be pulling for the Red Sox...never thought that would happen!)

[ehdg]

I root for the Indians in the AL and Phillies in the NL. Was a Mets fan till they started trading away all their good players in the mid '70's. When they traded away my favorite player I followed him and went to the Phillies. My favorite player was Tug McGraw.

[mr. synellinden]

Anskys.

[pfrduke]

Angels.

And the grammar policeman in me says "Who's." Sorry, I can't help it.

[cato]

Padres (ouch, but not a Mets ouch).

[dukemomLA]

The Mets (sigh, ugh, disgusted). But always the Mets. (And anyone playing the Yankees or the LA Dodgers).

[JBDuke]

Grew up a Cincinnati Reds fan, but have recently converted to the Washington Nationals. (The Reds still hold a place in my heart, though. You never forget your first love!)

[merry]

I grew up in a city that had no baseball team after I was about 12 so I am kind of half-assed about my MLB baseball fan-dom. I follow the Braves mostly and the Orioles sort of.

In AAA I follow the Durham Bulls. Thanks to our experiences with the Bulls these past few years I absolutely can't stand the Tampa Bay organization. I wish we had another affiliation.

[jimbonelson]

orioles all the way

[snowdenscold]

Orioles as well.

[dkbaseball]

Lifelong Cardinals fan

[Oriole Way]

Orioles, baby. Unfortunately.

[EarlJam]

Angels.

And the grammar policeman in me says "Who's." Sorry, I can't help it.


I write for a living. I should be ashamed. Just when e-mailing or posting, I tend to pay less attention to grammer and such. I've never been good with details and fully admit I am always in need of a good proofer.

I also get offended not in the least when someone points things like this out. I totally understand - but I do feel compelled to let the person know that I shouldn've known better.

Cheers!

-EarlJam

[Olympic Fan]

I was imprinted when I was eight years old and the Yankees were the only team on TV every week. That wasn't too bad when the team had Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra and Whitey Ford with Casey in the dugout.

I've never outgrown my love for the Yankees -- no matter what an $#&^& Steinbrenner is.

I also consider the Braves my No. 2 team. Living in Durham, 15 years of Braves' farm teams, plus for the first 10 years I had cable, it was either the Braves or the Cubs.

Having a team in the other league helps keep my interest up in both leagues. The only time it was ever a problem was when the two met in the WS ... and when it came down to it, my heart still belongs to the Yankees.

[duke74]

I was imprinted when I was eight years old and the Yankees were the only team on TV every week. That wasn't too bad when the team had Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra and Whitey Ford with Casey in the dugout.

I've never outgrown my love for the Yankees -- no matter what an $#&^& Steinbrenner is.

I also consider the Braves my No. 2 team. Living in Durham, 15 years of Braves' farm teams, plus for the first 10 years I had cable, it was either the Braves or the Cubs.

Having a team in the other league helps keep my interest up in both leagues. The only time it was ever a problem was when the two met in the WS ... and when it came down to it, my heart still belongs to the Yankees.

If I remember correctly, in the early 70's (my time at Duke), the Raleigh-Durham Triangles were a Red Sox farm team. I think I saw Cecil Cooper play, but could be mistaken.

[YmoBeThere]

Dodgers fan...

[dkbaseball]

If I remember correctly, in the early 70's (my time at Duke), the Raleigh-Durham Triangles were a Red Sox farm team. I think I saw Cecil Cooper play, but could be mistaken.

They were a Phillies farm team in 1970 (Greg Luzinski hit a vicious shot against us in an exhibition). My recollection is they were mixed in '71 and '72, meaning they had players from several different organizations, but no affiliation with a single team. Cooper may still have been kicking around A ball in the early '70s. I'm thinking he signed out of high school in '68.

[Deslok]

If I remember correctly, in the early 70's (my time at Duke), the Raleigh-Durham Triangles were a Red Sox farm team. I think I saw Cecil Cooper play, but could be mistaken.

I don't know about that far back, but during the early 90s(my time), the Red Sox single A club was the Lynchburg Red Sox, in the same league as the Durham Bulls. The only player I distinctly remember seeing was Trot Nixon - the then 1st round choice of the Sox, who I saw again at the Red Sox AA club in Trenton(closest club to where I grew up in Princeton), and then again at Pawtucket(while my best friend was working in Providence), and finally of course, up with the big league club.

[Olympic Fan]

They were a Phillies farm team in 1970 (Greg Luzinski hit a vicious shot against us in an exhibition). My recollection is they were mixed in '71 and '72, meaning they had players from several different organizations, but no affiliation with a single team. Cooper may still have been kicking around A ball in the early '70s. I'm thinking he signed out of high school in '68.

Durham was an Astros farm club through the late 1960s -- Rusty Staub and Joe Morgan passed through. The Phillies were here in 1970 -- both Luzinski and Bob Boone (still a third baseman) were here.

The team hung one for one or two more years as an independent -- a mix of the Durham and Raleigh franchises in the Carolina League. Cliff Johnson, who had a decent run as a big league power hitter, was the star of that team. After '72 (maybe '71 ... can't remember exactly) the team folded and there was no professional baseball in Durham for almost a decade.

A businessman named Miles Wolff saw an untapped market and in 1980 or 1981 (again, I'm not 100 percent sure of the exact year), he brought a Braves' Class A farm club to Durham. The Durham Bulls were Atlanta's property from that first year (1980 or 1981) until the franchise moved up to Triple A as Tampa's top affiliate in 1995 (or was it 1996?). During the Braves run, we had such standouts as Brett Butler, Steve Avery (who pitched an opening night no-hitter), Ron Gant, Jeff Blauser -- all the way up to Andruw Jones.

It was during that run -- and my natural curiosity to see Bulls' veterans in the majors -- that got me following the Braves.

[jimsumner]

The Raleigh-Durham Triangles' last season was 1971. Following their untimely demise, the Triangle was unrepresented in minor league baseball until Miles Wolff brought back the Durham Bulls for the 1980 season.


They were a Phillies farm team in 1969 and a co-op in 1970 and 1971.

[Bostondevil]

My team? Duh. Go Red Sox!

I have a scorecard from a Durham Bulls game in the '80s when they were playing the Lynchberg Mets (the were a Mets farm team at the time) and the lineup shows Jose Oquendo and Darryl Strawberry. Yes, I used to keep score at Durham Bulls game, what's the point of going to the park if you aren't going to keep score?

The summer after I graduated I sublet an apartment in an old tobacco warehouse on North Duke Street. You could see part of the field of Historic Durham Athletic Park from my window. One evening a friend was over for dinner, and after standing at my window for a good 15 minutes, he turned around and said, "Do you know how boring it is to watch just the centerfielder play baseball?"

ETA: Bob Tumpane and Steve Steib!

[jimsumner]

Lynchburg had some legendary Carolina League teams in the early '80s. Strawberry, Gooden, Dykstra. They just mowed down the opposition.

Yaz played shortstop for Raleigh in his first year after leaving Notre Dame. Great hitting season but it was decided that maybe a position switch was in order. Dick Radatz-the Monster-was among the other future BoSox who went through the capital city.

[rasputin]

I'm a third generation Yankee fan (from Connecticut), moved to the Midwest eventually, and started rooting for the Cardinals circa 1970.

[jimsumner]

To answer the original question, I've been a Yankees fan since the late
1950s, the Stengel era. Nothing rational, I grew up in eastern North Carolina but my father (a Georgia native) was a Yankees fan, so there you have it.

You could argue that becoming a Yankees fan during the Mantle-Ford era wasn't exactly a leap of faith. But how to you explain my becoming a Redskins fan at the same time, when the Redskins reached mediocre on their best days?

Funny how a decision made when you're eight resonates for decades. And yes, I acknowledge that Steinbrenner can be a grade-A putz. But I figure I'll outlive him. :)

[Jarhead]

The Raleigh-Durham Triangles' last season was 1971. Following their untimely demise, the Triangle was unrepresented in minor league baseball until Miles Wolff brought back the Durham Bulls for the 1980 season. ...

That's my team. The Bulls, that is. I am seriously hoping that somebody with a lot of money puts up what is needed to get an MLB franchise and the Durham Bulls name, right there in Durham. I might start liking Durham again.

I remember back when the Bulls were a Braves farm team. I had noticed the game attendance in the box score, and asked a friend how they got 6,000 people in the DAP when it had about a 5,000 capacity. His answer was 5,000 in the seats, and another thousand in the beer lines.

Otherwise, it's the Braves in MLB.