I Pledge Allegiance

While attending the Rashard Lewis press conference last week at Magic headquarters, I ran into The Shot Doctor from Orlando sports radio outlet 740 "The Team."

(For those outside central Florida: yes, I just wrote "The Shot Doctor." It's a reference to golf, not basketball, and that is the only name by which he is known in this market. Really. Read the bio, because it's waaaaay too long a story.)

Anyway, "Shot" mentioned that he reads this blog -- thank you, Mr. Doctor -- and asked me why my wife is such a hardcore Red Sox fan, something that, to Shot's credit, he could only have learned here (or maybe here).

The abbreviated answer: she spent her high school years in Andover, Massachusetts. Her parents have lived in that state, off and on, for years. Her brother graduated from BC, once shared an apartment a mere David Ortiz homer away from Fenway Park, and now lives with his wife and my nephew in Newton, Massachusetts. In short, she comes by it honestly. The roots of passion and all that.

Shot is a Yankee fan, apparently, and was wondering if I, too, have consumed the Red Sox Kool-Aid. My answer was "sorta." I enjoy watching them, because I've been to Fenway many times and love seeing the ballpark, plus I happen to believe that NESN does one hell of a job with their telecasts. But live and die with the Sox? Not really.

"So who's your team?" he asked. Meaning baseball.

Answer: the Atlanta Braves, because growing up in a 13-channel cable universe in Orlando, Florida in the 70's and 80's, I had very few options. It was either the Braves on the old "SuperStation" or the Cubs on WGN, and Chicago was very cold and very far away. So I picked the Braves, the self-styled "Team of the South," as my home team.

Fun bar trick, one that the sports staffers at my college radio station, WVBR, used to play after work: Name That Lineup. We'd each name our favorite baseball team from a given season, and then attempt to run down the starting lineup.

For me, it was an easy choice: the 1982 Braves, the team that won the NL West (yes, they were in the West back then) before being swept in three games (yes, it was a best-of-5) in the NL Championship Series by the eventual World Series champion Cardinals. If you see me enjoying a postgame beverage somewhere, never, EVER, bet me on this:

Bob Horner at 3rd, Rafael Ramirez at short, Glenn Hubbard at 2nd, Chris Chambliss at 1st (with occasional appearances by Bob Watson). Bruce Benedict did the catching. The outfield was Claudell Washington, Brett Butler, and Dale Murphy, who was my absolute baseball hero as a kid. Posters on the wall and everything. Jerry Royster wore number 1 (one of my favored numbers in Little League and high school baseball, mostly because it was the smallest jersey available), and was the utilityman. The star pitchers were Phil Niekro (won 17 games that year!), Bob Walk, and Pascual Perez, who was a certified whack job. God, I loved that team.

The point is, I became a Braves fan because they were readily available on TV when I was a kid, and they were the closest Major League team to Orlando in the pre-Marlins, pre-Rays days. My wife and her family spent formative years in and around Boston, so they're into the Sox. Shot Doctor grew up in New York, and sweats the Yankees. But sometimes, our allegiances form in far more roundabout ways.

I followed the Minnesota Twins because they used to have a Double-A team in Orlando, and I loved seeing guys with the "big club" who used to toil at Tinker Field. However, once they beat the Braves in the 1991 World Series, the Twinkies were dead to me.

I liked the Oakland A's because of their uniforms. Same thing with the Pirates, especially during the Willie Stargell - Kent Tekulve - "We Are Family" - stove-pipe cap era. The Pirates used to ape college football by sewing stars on those caps for great performances -- akin to Florida State and the tomahawks on the helmets -- and guys like Stargell probably wore three extra pounds on their heads by the end of the season.

Oh, and I hate the Yankees. They, too, beat the Braves in a World Series, and I wish to remain married to Mrs. Red Sox Nation. Rooting for the Yankees is like rooting for Microsoft. There's no challenge to it.

I finally got a "home team" when the Orlando Magic entered the NBA in 1989. I had just graduated from high school, and upon reaching the campus at Cornell -- a good 1200 miles away from the "O-rena" -- I became totally obnoxious about it, because I was pretty much the only guy who gave a crap about an expansion team. Of course, Magic fans hated the Miami Heat with a passion during the expansion days, but that rivalry has waned. Further, since returning to Florida four years ago, I've worked with the Heat broadcasters extensively and spent quite a bit of time in South Florida, and I like the way they do business. Their broadcasts on Sun Sports are outstanding, and their in-game presentation is among the best I've seen in the league. Working with both franchises on a professional basis has been one of many perks in this job.

But one more note on the Magic: Terry Catledge, Jerry "Ice" Reynolds, Dave Corzine, Reggie Theus, and Sam Vincent. That was their opening night starting lineup, November 4, 1989. Scoop of vanilla, scoop of chocolate, don't waste my time (triple bonus points for anyone who gets that movie reference).

In the NFL, geography would dictate that I grew up a Tampa Bay Bucs fan, but lest we forget, the Buccaneers were God-awful for much of my childhood (and, for that matter, much of their history prior to this decade). Truthfully, I never had a favorite NFL team -- but you can bet the farm that I claimed them as my own when they won the Super Bowl during my stint at ESPN.

We didn't watch much hockey in Florida, but I did see the Tampa Bay Lightning play at the old Expo Hall at the Florida State Fairgrounds. Yeesh. When I hosted the team's Stanley Cup championship parade on Sun Sports following the 2004 season, I could close my eyes and almost smell the livestock from all those years before.

College athletics? In light of my current position, I ain't going there. Instead, I follow a personal Golden Rule: "a rising tide lifts all boats." A winning team in Tallahassee makes me just as happy, and is just as good for business, as a winning team in Gainesville, Miami, Tampa, or anywhere else in our fair state. Very few college football fans, in particular, believe me, but it's a fact. I can't afford to be a "fan" of any one college team in Florida. Wouldn't be fair, or prudent.

For a future blog entry, I'd like to hear from you on this topic: "the most roundabout way I became a fan of Team X." Simple geography isn't enough; I want to hear about how you once met Ed Kranepool at a shopping mall and became a serious Mets fan, or perhaps have an early childhood memory of seeing Earl Campbell's jersey disintegrate on TV and fell in love with the Houston Oilers. You can use the "Critiques" function at the bottom of this entry, or just hit "Reply." Could be an interesting mailbag for these dog days of summer.

Yankee fans? Don't bother.