Ranking: Major League Baseball Teams

I can't put into words how much I love this time of year. Opening day and the first week of the season when my beloved Chicago Cubs are always still in contention. What I realized once again this past Monday is that while I am a fan of most sports, and an avid fan of College Football in particular...baseball holds a special place for me. Where do I stand on the other teams you might ask? Well, I started to rank them all...but there's a big, squishy, middle where it all kinds of blends together. If the Diamondback play the Indians...well, frankly, I don't really care who wins. And, honestly, I can't think of much of anybody who would.

And so I decided to present the rankings of my five favorite and my five least favorite baseball teams (thus covering both the heinously evil and the pure and righteous) for your perusal and for my own clarification. These rankings are always subject to change...for example, a sudden injury/proof the obvious removing Barry Bonds from the Giants would elevate them into the top 5. But...as of today, right now...here are my big 10. Let's start with the nasties:

1) The New York Yankees. The great baseball Satan. Buy whoever they need to win championships and then consistently keep themselves rich and and top by railroad attempts at revenue sharing to make the league more competitive. Roster includes primadonna/crybaby/man-who-makes-more-money-than-God Alex Rodriguez and a handful of other players (Carl Pavano, Jason Giambi) who turned their backs on home teams to get more money. I can't imagine cheering for them...it would be like cheering for the ebola virus.

2) The Boston Red Sox. Quickly catching (in some ways surpassing) the Yankees in all the ways listed above. After winning the whole thing a few years back and breaking their curse, baseball fans have been subjected to endless waves of propaganda about how earth-shattering the Red Sox winning it all was to the point of nausea. They won because they now do everything the Yankees do. Cheering for them would be like cheering for poverty.

3) The Chicago White Sox. The year the Sox won it all, I was in Chicago during the playoffs. I wore my Cubs hat. I kept getting comments, including a guy at a sandwich shop after taking my order: "That'll be $6.95...and you need to root for a real team." Wait a second...you want money now, from me? Anyway...you get the point. They have a racist, short-fused, if-you-don't-play-well-I'll-scream-at-you-until-you-do manager who constantly makes fun of or berates his own players to the press. And, above all else, their ballpark (appropriately called "The Cell") looks and feels like something built in East Germany...and is about as inviting. I visited there once wearing a Royals hat and jersey (asking for it...I'll admit)...I walked by a ten-year old boy who looked at me and dropped the F-word. And, no, I don't mean "friendly." Yeah. Nice.

4a) The Houston Astros. I know, as a Cubs fan I'm supposed to dislike the Cards more. But this is just over whelming math: Division rival+Texas+Roger Clemens+Stealing Carlos Beltran from the Royals+Texas+Texas+TEXAS=Team I really don't like very much. At all.

4b) The St. Louis Cardinals. Consistently better than the Cubs because they do a better job of maintaining their farm system and are smarter with their contracts. But do we really need to hear the "best fans in baseball" speech again? How hard is it to cheer for a consistent winner? Give me Devil Ray fans any day. I've thought LaRussa was overrated ever since the A's lost to the Reds in 1990...and the whole organization pretending Big Mac didn't do 'roids is getting laughable. And, reason number one they are this low...Card fans genuinely, passionately hate Cub fans. It really scares me sometimes. Hey, we never hurt anybody. Just show us your rings...we'll shut up. So, out of fear, they're this high.

5) The San Francisco Giants. I used to love them. My aunt is from SF, my wife used to live there...and I used to like watching Will Clark, Kevin Mitchell and the gang. I've been to and love their park. One big...sorry, huge problem. Barry Bonds. Julie bought me a Giants hat back in the day...I'm waiting for the day Bonds retires so that I can wear it out in public again. It sits, in mint condition, in my closet...waiting for that day. Hopefully my head won't grow as much as Barry's has over the next few years...oh, wait, it won't. Because I'm not pumping my body full of horse steriods and killing the whole sport of baseball.

Honorable Mention) The Cincinnati Reds. Ongoing nemesis of the Cubs and former home of Gamblin' Petey Rose and Racial Slurrin' Margey Schott. Their new ballpark looks like the unholy spawn of a dilapidated steamboat and a bauxite mine.

And now to take a deep breath and think happy thoughts. The good ones:

1) The Chicago Cubs. What's not to love about a perennial loser that, by its very existence, celebrates the glories of afternoon baseball because they were too cheap to get lights for so long?The older-than-dirt-stadium. The older-than-dirt curse. Half-drunk announcers. Andre Dawson. Ernie Banks. Rod Beck. Ryno. That strange cocktail of total depravity and hope. Comedy, tragedy, and possibility all rolled into one...this, friends, is the great comic opera of our time. It's like a 100 year episode of "Days of our Lives." Call me sado-masochistic, but they are my guys.

2) The Kansas City Royals. The team of my father and the team of my childhood. I still get goosebumps every time I go to Kaufmann Stadium...it was the first place I watched a ballgame. I went through a Royals renaissance when I lived in KC and had many, many good times at the ballpark with friends. When it come down to the baseball aspects of it...well, I cheer for them for the exact same reasons I cheer against the Yankees. Small market, baby...I root for David, not Goliath.

3) The Colorado Rockies. I don't know what we would have done if we had moved to St. Louis. It is great to be in Colorado...they have a good small market team and one whale of a cool ballpark. Throw in the fact that you always get your money's worth (usually at least a run per dollar) at the park...and bingo! Nothing better than cheering for the home team.

4) The Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Why? Well, frankly, because if seminary taught me one thing it is that we must look out for the last, the lost, and the least. These guys are all three. These poor guys play in a barely-converted barn of a stadium, play in the division with the most disposable income, and were given the worst name/ugliest uniforms in sports albatross from their inception. Is this a pity vote? You bet it is...somebody's got to cheer for them. Let's put it this way, if baseball would have existed in Biblical Israel, I think Jesus would have worn a Rays hat. They need him the most.

5) Tough call here...I'm going to have to go with Milwaukee Brewers simply because I have never, ever, ever, ever, ever been to a ballyard as crazy as Miller Park. I swear they have a three drink minimum. On each one of the five to seven times I have visited, I have returned with one whale of a story to tell. I really can't think of any other place with that kind of batting average this side of Heartwell, Nebraska. Add in the sausage race and the venomously guarded secret stadium sauce and, well, there you have it. The happiest/most disturbing place on earth. Go Brewers (or, as the locals call them after a few...the Brrruuuhhhhs.)

There you have it...my allegiances as they stand at the moment. Of course, of these teams listed above, well, you know who's going to make the playoffs this year. Most projections have every single one of the teams under the "dislike" heading making it. Yeah. But there's still hope...and that, my friends, is what Spring is all about.