The Ten Worst Teams to Be a Fan Of

EDIT: This article sucks, because I have been working like a dog lately. I'm trying to get more content up as it comes to me.

It’s the holiday season. And even though it would probably be easy for me to be thankful for what I have, I’d rather be thankful for what I don’t have: an allegiance to one of these teams.

10) Florida State University
Being a graduate of Florida State must be tough. Not only do you have to deal with constantly getting tooled on about the quality of your education, it's easy to let the jokes distract you from the air conditioner you're repairing. As far as the football team goes, I know our culture has predisposed us to ignore any crime by a big-name athlete short of rape or murder, but come on. You do have to congratulate their receivers on their ability to run so well while wearing those GPS-tracking ankle bracelets, though. Also, like Tennessee, they’re always mentioned in discussions of the best teams in recent memory, even though their résumé doesn’t really stack up with the hype.

9) Baltimore Orioles
Orioles fans are the bastard stepchildren of the AL East. If it weren't for Cal Ripken Jr. (whose record is still probably the most overrated sports accomplishment of the last thirty years) and Rafael Palmeiro becoming one of the most universally disliked players in the history of baseball, people would have forgotten the Orioles existed by now. Never mind the fact that "egomaniacal control freak" doesn't begin to describe owner Peter Angelos.

8) Philadelphia Eagles
The Eagles are the Buffalo Bills of the 21^st century, except they don’t make you feel sorry for them. Still, the personal crisis that Eagles fans must have gone through this season would have been enough to drive anyone crazy. As I write this, three guys from Philly are probably busting Rae Carruth out of prison to engineer an emergency hit on Terrell Owens.

7) Los Angeles Clippers
They would be higher on this list for all the obvious reasons (terrible owner, stars refuse to play there, haven't made the playoffs since the time of Christ), but even within Los Angeles nobody seems to care that they exist. It looks like they're turning things around, though. Just like every season.

6) Detroit Lions
One playoff win since 1957. Never-ending quarterback controversy. They play in Detroit. Even I hate the Lions, because they make every Thanksgiving boring. Every year I go through an unpleasant emotional rollercoaster during the five minutes when I finish dinner, sit down contentedly in front of the TV, and then realize the Lions are down 25 points five minutes after the opening kickoff and that I'll have to listen to two more hours of John Madden rambling incoherently.

5) Arizona Cardinals
Come on. I will give anyone in a 500-mile radius of this city ten bucks if they can name more than 5 players who have ever played for the Cardinals.

4) Chicago Cubs
You know how every year in baseball there's one unexpected contender that ends up surprising everyone and becoming the feel-good story of the year? (Okay, maybe not in baseball; I could probably predict the 2008 playoff picture right now.) The Cubs have exhausted their reservoir of feel-good years. No matter how many times they make the playoffs or how long it’s been since their last trip, they'll be swamped in irritating stories about their past. You can’t be a lovable loser if everyone else hates you. Also, everyone in Boston seems to be hyperventilating about the Globe's virtual monopoly on information that gets published about the Red Sox. The Tribune Company has been doing that with the Cubs for years. And since rooting for the Cubs has become about the experience rather than the destination, there’s no pressure on the ownership to win.

3) New Orleans Saints
You really want them to succeed, what with the hurricane and all, but they just can’t do it. You could almost say Katrina made their fan base less supportive, because they were given the same “inspirational” mantle as other teams that stepped it up under extreme circumstances (like the 2001 Yankees), without anyone remembering that they’re the Saints. Internal conflict and strife follow this team everywhere. At the start of the season they were America’s Team, but now I think America’s relationship with the Saints is pretty much summed up by my reaction to finding out what tonight’s Sunday Night Football game was. “Saints-Jets… well, at least there’s a new Family Guy on.”

2) Cleveland Browns
America loves winners, but it also needs losers. When it comes to ineptitude, we like to have one single target that springs to mind (minorities, the South, France), and when it comes to sports, the city of Cleveland fills that void. Browns fans have experienced the dizzying highs, crushing lows, and creamy middles of the NFL and had their hearts ripped out at all points. The list of insults is almost too long to catalog: being the tragic loser in the '87 and '88 AFC Championships, having their franchise taken away, and now being a virtual afterthought in their own division. This says nothing of the fact that God allowed Art Modell’s Balti-Cleveland Raven-Browns to win the 2001 Super Bowl out of spite.

1) New York Yankees
Sure, the team's great, but as a fan you're spending an extra two grand a year on hair oil, wax for your pimp-stache, and gold jewelry.

One quick thing

This is what I do all day. Somehow, I have a girlfriend.

I Love You, Terrell Owens

Dear Terrell Owens:

This is not your fault.

I know, I know, a lot of people have said some mean things about you. Like that you're a selfish, backstabbing clown who has so completely lost touch with what is acceptable social behavior that he still thinks he's in the right. But that's just not the case. Clearly, you’re being screwed here, and as your biggest fan, I feel it's my responsibility to step up and let you know that I still believe in you.

I've been following your career for a long time. Remember when you were in San Francisco and you all but told the media that Jeff Garcia was gay? That was awesome! Some people might complain that you made an allegation that could ruin Garcia's career for no other reason than to be a dick, but not me. Garcia deserved it! After all, come on – he speaks with a lisp. It had to be said. And when you put the blame for your Super Bowl loss on Donovan McNabb, that was just classy. It's true, he was probably a little out of shape, but for some inexplicable reason a lot of people are saying that you stabbed him in the back. That's just the media. What do they know? They loooove to bring up the way you've thrown your teammates under the bus at every stage of your career, like the time you whined for attention during the 49ers' celebration of Jerry Rice. They’re just jealous.

But you know what? None of that stuff is relevant. The most important thing here is that you're a good player who sacrifices himself for the organization. Well, physically, at least. Your one awesome season, combined with a great performance in the Super Bowl, should be more than enough to make your employer ignore the dozens of other major headaches you create. If I negotiated a great deal for my company and then started sabotaging other people's projects and badmouthing management, they couldn't fire me, right?

You're also a good citizen. As far as the fans know, you've never knocked anyone up or sold illegal drugs, automatically making you a good person and a good teammate. Hell, that means you're cleaner than 80% of the Baltimore Ravens. Any team would love to have a stand-up guy like you. And while every other member of the Eagles may privately long to tear out your larynx, that doesn't matter - you show up to practice on time and you haven't killed anyone yet. Therefore, you're a valuable asset to the team. The fact that you're obviously a childish man-boy who drags everyone around him down shouldn't take away from that. Neither should the fact that you're a bigger cancer than an irradiated bag of asbestos.

This whole suspension thing was all a big misunderstanding, too. I mean, we shouldn't be blaming you for the way you're portrayed in the media, should we? It's not like you have personal control over every statement issued about you. Let's be honest - ESPN just makes stuff up and puts words in your mouth from time to time. Flat-out liars, those guys are.

And while we're on the topic of public image, I think at the time it was a shrewd choice to get Drew Rosenhaus to represent you. A lot of people throw around some harsh words when referring to Rosenhaus. Words like "smarmy sleazebag" and "unnecessarily confrontational dickhead" and "soul-sucking mega-douche." As for me, though, I sympathize with you. As a player with an already questionable reputation, it must have been difficult for you to predict that Rosenhaus, who has built a career out of making organizations hate him, would make a tender situation worse. When you made the basis for Jay Mohr's character in "Jerry Maguire" your public face, you couldn't have possibly foreseen what happened.

So let's place the blame where it belongs here: on the Eagles. Clearly, this is their fault. They should have recognized from Day One that you are a mentally unstable individual desperate to be the center of attention at all times. Let’s get one thing straight here: NFL contracts aren't about mutual responsibility - they're about a team laying out a bunch of cash and then crossing their fingers and hoping for the best. Caveat emptor, baby. Hell, if you had just beaten James Thrash to death with a tire iron because you thought he was taking away from your catches, that would have been the Eagles' fault too. Come on - they knew what they were getting into.

This is more than just a battle between you and the Eagles, too. It's between white America and black America. White people don't hate you because you think of yourself as bigger than the team, or because you alienated all your teammates, or because you think your performance on the field exonerates you from any responsibility to your teammates off it. They just hate you because you're black, the same way that your black teammates hate you because you're black.

And because of the obvious racism inherent in this situation, it was a clever move on your part to have Jesse Jackson step in and defend you. Some people might say that at this point he's a laughingstock who inevitably hurts whatever cause he's supporting - particularly one he has zero experience in - but not me! I think the Rev's opinion is on point on all topics, from contract negotiation to illegitimate children.

Without you, the Eagles went from a contender in the NFC East to hoping the Cowboys have a bad week or three so they can have a shot at the wild card. They deserved to have this happen to them for the way they treated you, and don't you forget it.

So don't get down on yourself, T.O. - you're better than that. You're my favorite player, and will continue to be for all time. In fact, it would be a crime for me to say that you are anything less than the greatest athlete of all time. The only way you should return to the NFL is if a team erects a fifty-foot tall golden statue of you outside their stadium. Remember - some people might say a lot of bad things about you, but don't you listen to them.

Your biggest fan,

Terrell Owens

In Defense of Instant Replay

EDIT: Sorry this took forever to get up. I've been hassled because I have a new "job" where I make "money."

Now that it's behind us, let's just say it together: A.J. Pierzynski was out. I am sick and tired of close plays getting blown in the playoffs. No matter what anyone says, instant replay can and should be implemented. And if I hear one more douche argue that blown calls generate the controversy that gives the game flavor, I am going to pull a Derek Vinyard. It's time.

There are a couple of big arguments against replay. They are all wrong:

1) It'll slow down the game.

No it won't. When the NFL introduced replay, there was the same big hue and cry, and at worst, we're forced to wait an extra minute twice a game to find out the result of the play. Not only that, football is a much more complex game and therefore less conducive to replay, and there's STILL almost unanimous agreement that replay has improved things. For one thing, we don't have to hear the Seahawks whining every December that they got screwed.

As far as time goes, the current NFL system takes forever because the league feels the need to let the on-field referee have the final call. This means he has to waste time by trotting off the field, watching the replays on one tiny screen, and then trotting back onto the field to announce his decision. If one official upstairs had the authority to use video to his advantage and then radio the correct call down to the on-field referee, that would cut out 80% of the delay. Not only that, baseball – unlike football – has tons of natural stoppages that would be perfect to use for reviewing calls. It would take literally thirty seconds for a replay official to overturn an umpire's missed call. I refuse to believe that replay can't be implemented quickly and efficiently in all those blocks of dead time. On top of that, who are the people complaining about this? What's more important here, sitting through 20 seconds of delay twice a game, or being confident that the outcome was settled fairly?

2) Human error is part of the game.

True, it is - on the players' part. Umpires, on the other hand, are like part of the playing field; their fallibility is a necessary evil, and anyone who has ever played high-level organized sports will say the same. Nothing is more frustrating than getting screwed by a blown call, and the knowledge that things balance themselves out over time isn't going to console a guy who was mistakenly called out. Also, the people who say umpires' fallibility is part of the game have a curious habit of changing their tunes once one of their team's baserunners is walking back to the dugout after a phantom tag.

Fair competition is dependent on a level playing field. When managers and players screw up, it hurts their cause, but it doesn't introduce an extra variable – the players are always in control of the outcome, and the only things that can make them lose are their failures or their opponents' successes. The reason umpires' errors harm games is because they detract from that pure competition and, on rare occasions, produce results that make the actions of those players and coaches secondary.

3) Players and coaches don't like replay.

There are good reasons players say this. For one, it's the professional thing to do - nobody wants to come out and sound like they're harping against the umpires, because for the most part they do an outstanding job. Also, players tend to see replay as something that will inevitably be done clumsily - and you can't really blame them, given baseball's atrocious track record for managing sticky situations (the steroid scandal, the 2002 All-Star Game tie incident). This doesn't mean it can't be done right.

4) We need to respect the umpires' authority.

Yes, umpires hate being second-guessed. You know what they hate more? Having one mistake haunt them for the rest of their careers, the media circus that follows blown calls, and receiving death threats. As Gene Wojciechowski said in his ESPN.com column arguing against replay last week, "[Umpires'] imperfections are what help make the game so, well, perfect." Yes, God forbid we damage the sanctity of the game by going over the umpires' heads. I'm sure Don Denkinger would agree with you, Gene. For those of you who don't remember Don, he blew a call in the 1985 World Series that resulted in his receiving thousands of pieces of hate mail from Cardinals fans. His name is now synonymous with that blown call. Had replay been around then, not only would justice have been served on the field, Denkinger wouldn't have had to spend the next ten years of his career wondering if some lunatic had brought a gun into the stadium.

Keeping these in mind, there is a way to use replay correctly:

1) Keep the power to overturn calls in the hands of the umpires.

Both the decision to challenge a call on the field and the end result should be determined by an eye-in-the-sky official who has video access to every play. This is one of the problems with the NFL's replay system. The onus to challenge shouldn't be on one of the coaches, so that after a questionable call the apparently wronged head coach has to play a little mind game with the referees. The same is true of baseball. No challenges, nothing - just create a "Replay Official" who sits in the press box and has access to every camera angle in the park. If a call gets missed on the field, overturn it in 30 seconds and move on. This would happen, at most, two or three times per game, and the delay incurred would be negligible.

2) Don't go overboard.

Ball and strike calls shouldn't be reviewable, simply because there are so many of them that are questionable that it would take forever to analyze each one. This isn't to say that it couldn't be done in the future - witness ESPN's K-zone feature. But if there's a grievous error on, say, a tag play or a catch/trap situation, the replay official could radio down to the field and reverse the call.

Finally, nobody is saying that the umpires aren't competent. Yes, it's impressive that they get over 99% of calls right, even in incredibly difficult circumstances. However, when we have the ability to get 100% of them right without interfering with the natural flow of the game, why wouldn't we use it?

Wojciechowski's final word in his column was this: "Managers screw up. Ballplayers screw up. And on occasion, so do umpires - even when you have a crew of six working a postseason series." You see, Gene, there's a fundamental difference between managers, players and umpires: managers and players are the actors in a competitive forum, while the referees are merely the arbiters. When managers and players make mistakes, it only hurts their own cause, but umpires are part of the framework in which the game takes place – when umpires fail, the whole game fails. So yes, those imperfections are part of the game. Yes, it's impossible to elevate competition to a perfect plane. But keeping us from coming as close as we can is just dumb.

Responses to Craigslist Personal Ads, Vol. 2

God, I love writing these.

I'm perfect for you! There is a strong POSSIBILITY that I will be moving to Hawaii in a year. : )
I’m not sure what your capitalization of the word “possibility” means. I’ll assume it means you’d like a year’s worth of casual sex before you disappear over the western horizon.

I am a tall, curvy, red head with slanted green eyes. I am lightly tanned with a good body. There.
Thanks for that exhaustive description. I can’t imagine what else I’d want to know about you. In fact, just looking at that text is turning me on right now. Excuse me a minute.

Now that we have that out of the way...I don't send photos. At least not initially.
That’s too bad. I immediately imagined you as super hot on the basis of your twelve-word description of your looks. Also, since there’s no other resource on the Internet where I could find pictures of attractive women, I’d need yours to arouse myself.

Being sensitive to rejection, like everyone, I would not over sell myself.
I’m sensing some conflict between this statement and the immediate assertion that you were “perfect for me!”

I am considered to be attractive to some, beautiful to others.
Please express this assessment in terms of a bell curve. Do you know what an “outlier” is?

However, I have been told that my inner beauty is slammin'.
I’ve been told that my House of Pain mixtape and fade haircut are both slammin’. Holla!

I think you will find me to be both amusing and arousing. I am well read and an excellent conversationlist.
Let’s hope your verbal communication skills surpass your fourth-grade command of sentence structure and subject-verb agreement.

I am a risk taker & have an unusual outlook regarding the world. I am looking for a man between 30 & 45ish...
Adding “ish” to an age bracket on an online personal ad automatically qualifies you as a risk-taker. If you wrote “tallish,” you could virtually guarantee a cavalcade of midgets breaking down your door.

Must be educated or pass as such. : )
My GED scores will make you hot, baby. I’ll sexamatize you with my prodigious profusion of splendiferous verbitude.

I want a liberal, open minded person, please. No small minds, small town, small world outlooks.
It’s true – the only intelligent people in this vast nation of ours live in cities. I have to hand it to you, though, you have to have some serious balls to ask for someone “open-minded” and then in the NEXT SENTENCE put together a trite generalization that alienates half of America.

Dark looking, foreign, exotic men a plus, although please be American/European or "Americanized".
“You can have that skin color, but not the culture that goes with it.” Tall, red-haired, and xenophobic – my kind of woman. What happened to all that “open-minded” stuff?

If you are eloquent, sophisticated without being pretentious ( snobs are boring as hell)well read, sexy and kind, then I think we would have a lot in common.
If I was demanding and not very self-aware, I think we would have a lot in common.

I am looking for a partner in crime. I am dating casually, but I have not yet met someone who is truly intriguing or who makes me think and laugh. I want to live it up, before the world dies down.
Interesting that you expect the world to die down, as opposed to losing interest in you. I’m also getting the distinct impression that your idea of “living it up” involves box wine and Fark parties.

P.S I just added this. I have had a flattering amount of responses ( 150 so far)so thank you.
This is Craigslist. You could have posted an ad claiming to be a one-legged gypsy woman and gotten 100 responses.

The majority have been very respectful and gives me hope!
Lady, if you’re relying on Craigslist as your source of emotional support, you might want to start drafting that suicide note. Remember – the blade goes down the highway, not across the street.