Handicapping the Competition: Starting with 100:1

Opening Day Odds (For my future team, not for the season winners – yes I’m self-centered.)

I broke this list down into a few categories just to give me a starting point.  I am committed to keeping an open mind about all teams, but I think it’s fair to establish where my initial biases lie.

100 to 1… Really Long Shots:  These are teams that I am already resistant to, and to be convinced, there would have to be some really compelling information…

Yankees:  Join the evil empire?  Well, I did like Don Mattingly when I was a kid.  That’s pretty much about it right now.  Too much money, too much hype.  Too many bandwagon fans…. ?

Blue Jays: Well… they are Canadian.  And not even cool Vancouver Canadian.  Unless Robin Sparkles plays first, I’m probably not going to go this direction…

White Sox:  Chicago is such a mysterious town to me.  Never been there, don’t really know much about it.  They have deep pizzas and Frank Thomas.  If I am going to pick a team from Chicago, it’s probably not going to be the White Sox.

Padres: San Diego seems like a nice place.  Never been there.  Weather is apparently ridiculously awesome.  I’m a supporter.  But the Padres are so damn boring.  Boring name.  Boring unis.  Boring players.   Going to need some serious convincing to end up in a Padres cap.

What's This All About?

Everybody has a need to belong, don’t they?  The desire to be a part of something bigger than yourself.  It’s the reason for fraternities and political parties and why you feel somehow special to be a “member” of Costco.  Well it’s this basic human need that leads me to my current quest – finding a professional baseball team to call my own.  I want to be a fan. I want to cruise the message boards when I should be working, to get amped for a big divisional game in the middle of the week and to feel tempted (just tempted…) to paint my body in team colors for the playoffs.

Until now, this has not been possible for a few reasons.  The first is that I am a complete sports whore.  Yes, you read that correctly.  I can’t stick with one team to save my life.  On any given day, I am fascinated by differently players and teams and even uniforms.  (This affliction bleeds over into all my sports viewing, however, since baseball is my main focus, I will have to go ahead and live with my whoredom in basketball, football and pretty much all collegiate events).

The second hurdle is that I live in southeastern Virginia.  We have no sports teams.  Literally, there is not a professional franchise within 4 hours of my house.  If I lived in New York or St. Louis or LA, the choice would be much simpler.  But I do not.  I am free to fall in love with any team I choose, because I am still going to have order my merchandise from MLB.com.

So I have issued myself a challenge.  Take the 2011 baseball season, analyze the good and the bad about each team and at the end… pick one.  Seems simple enough.

Without further ado… let the search begin.