Been a fan since....

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

seawolf17 wrote: seawolf17 wrote: 1985. What this guy said. Me three. At 10 years old, how could I not fall in love with that team? Exactly. I didn't know any better at first and just followed my Little League teams the first couple of years (Cardinals, Cubs) but couldn't bring myself to like the Twins that following spring. The rest, as they say, is history.

I didn't follow my LL teams-- by then, I was well locked-in-- but I DID come to love the '85 Royals. My uncle's family lived at Fort Leavenworth for a couple of years, and their enthusiasm for the Royals and Chiefs was powerful and almost palpable. Plus, once they snuck past the Jays to take on Tudor and the MFCs, they became blood allies. Maybe it was at least 50 percent Cardhate. God, did 7-year-old me hate the Cards.

[RealityChuck]

Became a fan in 1965.

I got into baseball at the wrong time: 1961. Since I lived on Long Island, that meant I rooted for the MFYs. And, of course, you had the Mantle/Maris battle that year. I was a Maris fan; my first MLB game was when he hit #61.

In the summer of 1964, I went off to summer camp, so I couldn't follow baseball and lost interest. But in the fall, I idly followed the MFYs in the World Series. When they lost, I decided that if I was going to follow a team that lost world series, I'd follow the Mets, who would never be in one anyway.

(Also my brothers' friends were Mets fans. And about that time, Ed Kranepool and Larry Miller made a PR stop about a half hour from where I lived; the Yankees never did anything like that). So I started learning about new players: Hawk Taylor, Joe Christopher, Kranepool, Jack Fisher, etc. By the end of the season I was hooked.

[Guest cooby]

That is really cool!

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Great story Chuck. Reminded me of what George Thorogood said about becoming a Mets fan around the same time. In Wilmington, he was a Philly fan but in the wake of their 64 collapse said "If I'm going to root for a loser I'll root for the biggest loser of all."