Personally, I hate all kinds of things. I hate Kobe Bryant. I hate the Boston Celtics (as you can guess I’m struggling with these NBA Finals). I hate the Yankees. I hate Tom Brady. I hate Cris Collinsworth. I hate the Twilight saga. I hate female comedians. I hate that no matter how many shakes we men do after going to the bathroom a couple droplets always end up dripping down our legs. But I digress.
This article is about those teams that we can all sit around a campfire, drink and hate together. I think sometimes we get lost in our love for our own teams and forget why it’s so easy to hate all these losers, so I’m here to remind you of who we hate and why the suck.
The Minnesota Vikings
With what has happened in the past year I can’t think of a better team to start this off with than the Viqueens. First of all nice colors; purple and yellow? It looks like Fran Tarkenton ate a bushel of plums and then puked on their jerseys.
Secondly, Vikings are dumb. I’m pretty sure the name comes from the idea that Vikings once sailed up the St. Lawrence River looking for a route to the Pacific and eventually they realized the farthest they could get was a cold, desolate piece of land similar to their own, so they said, “Screw it. That’s a long trip back,” and just camped down in Minnesota instead. Some say that Vikings, not Christopher Columbus, were actually the first to discover America. Those people are foolish because Columbus was the man. My fourth grade social studies book was not lying to me. Awesome Italian men still exist today, like Leonardo DiCaprio for instance. Vikings, however, do not exist, which means they all died off because they were stupid and wore horned helmets instead of winter caps, just in case a rousing game of ring toss ever broke out. Vikings probably never existed. Someone should look into that.
(His name is Ragnar. I don't know why that's funny.)As far as the football team goes they are historically bad. The Viqueens are one of ten teams to have never won a Super Bowl. They haven’t even reached one since the 1970s. How do you not make it to the Super Bowl with the record-breaking juggernaut offense they had in 1998 which consisted of Randall Cunningham chucking the ball around to two of the five greatest wide receivers of all time in Cris Carter and Randy Moss, not to mention Jake Reed in the slot and four-year wonder Robert Smith racking up rushing yards? Oh, now I remember. It was because they’re defense was led by John Randle who was too busy borrowing Ted Danson’s face make-up so he could put obscene amounts under his eyes even though the stuff is designed to help players with the sun and he was playing in a dome. Does anyone even understand that joke?
Antonio Freeman punked them on Monday Night Football. The Benedict Arnold-led Packers then traded punches with them for nearly a decade until the quarterback-to-remain-nameless (QTRN) switched sides and managed two narrow victories last season on account of Jared Allen wearing a cloak that makes him invisible to the eyes of Darryn Colledge. Luckily, Bryan Bulaga has a potion that renders the cloak useless and will, in turn, keep Aaron Rodgers off the turf long enough to pick apart their secondary and thoroughly beat the Viqueens into submission this year.
In no way do I blame the Viqueens for going after QTRN. If my quarterbacks were Sage Rosenfels and Tarvaris Jackson I’d pick a 40-year-old man off the street and give him a shot too. I do find it strange how quickly their fans endeared themselves to the man they hated on for over 15 years, which made it so much sweeter when they finally felt what it was like to deal with the heartbreak of a terrible, inexcusable, season-ending interception by QTRN. Too bad they’ll never know what it feels like for QTRN to lead them to a Super Bowl title. Too bad.
Also, the first down horn is, by far, the most annoying gimmick in professional sports. In essence, it’s just a louder version of the parents in Little Giants yelling, “We gained a yard!” They’re a bunch of losers and they will continue to be as long as they celebrate first downs so enthusiastically. (Please disregard the fact that the Little Giants won, and were extremely awesome)
The Chicago Cubs
Their track record speaks for itself. It has now been over 100 years since the Chicago Cubs have won the World Series. There were 16 teams in Major League Baseball 100 years ago. How hard is it to win a championship when there are 16 teams in the league? Don’t worry though, there’s a perfectly logical explanation for why they’ve sucked for a century. They were cursed by a goat. Really? That’s the reason? Have someone who knows nothing about baseball read that sentence and tell you how stupid it sounds. True, the Brewers have never won a World Series, but they’ve only been around since 1970. Come talk to me in 60 years or so, and if the Crew doesn’t have a title by then I’ll apologize. We don’t hate them for being losers of epic proportions though. In fact, that’s their best attribute; much better than their fans.
(Yeah throw the ball back! That'll hurt his feelings.)Brewer fans cheer louder, act classier and party a lot harder than those flatlanders down at Wrigley. Cub fans, and their blind ignorance, love to group all current Brewer fans into a blanket of bandwagon jumpers. Personally, I saw Cal Eldred pitch in person on multiple occasions without once attending a C.C. Sabathia game, so hopefully I’m out from under that blanket, but I have one good reason for the influx in Brewer backers in recent years; intelligence. To Cub fans every year is ‘their year’. No matter how little hope the team showed the previous year and how many new $100 million contracts they doled out to .250-batting leftfielders, they still, for whatever reason, think they will win it all at the beginning of every season. The Brewers sucked for 20 years. The Cubs have sucked for 100. The only difference is Wisconsin people realized it. Plus it’s not too hard to fill up that pitiful-excuse for a stadium that seats about 18 people and is in desperate need of a weed whacker.
But at least they’re good losers right? (<---blatant sarcasm) The most recent time that the Cubs had a realistic shot at going to the World Series was in 2003. They would have most likely won the pennant that year if not for their shortstop, Alex Gonzalez, botching a routine ground ball in the eighth inning of game six. Instead of blaming Gonzalez though, the fans decided to ruin the life of a headphone-wearing, sweater-clad, innocent young man named Steve Bartman. Forget the fact that Moises Alou admitted he couldn’t have made a play on the foul ball that Bartman “interfered” with. They sent the man death threats and made him afraid to leave his home. Stay classy Chicago.
I don’t think I have to explain how much more fun the experience is at Miller Park compared to Wrigley Field. In the parking lot, we drink until we can’t stand, which is perfect because we have to sit down to watch the baseball game (and of course continue to drink). People can’t even tailgate at Wrigley. It must be rough having to continue to watch a team that bad without even a little buzz going in.
The Ohio State Buckeyes
This may be a surprise to some. I chose OSU over the Universities of Illinois and Michigan simply because they are more of a threat and truthfully have been the only Big Ten team to outperform the Badgers the last few years. Yes Illinois orange and blue is disgusting and Michigan is epically overrated, but Ohio State’s nickname is a seed. That has to be THE least masculine team name in the world. Seeds don’t even do anything bad. They’re seeds.
Anyways, I’d have to say I have an equal amount of hatred for both the football and basketball teams. Jim Tressel always looks like he’s waiting on a tee time and Thad Matta…well Thad Matta has a stupid name. Bo Ryan is twice the coach Matta is, but the swing offense isn’t exactly appealing to high school All-Americans. Ryan has been a more successful coach with a team usually led by players who won’t even sniff the league. Matta is bringing in another stud, Jared Sullinger, next year, and I’m sure he’ll hang around for one season, compete for the Big Ten title, make it to the sweet sixteen and bail.
Some people like to cheer for the Big Ten as a whole. These are the ones who root for anyone from our conference as long as they’re playing someone from a different conference. These are the kind of people that don’t genuinely understand hate. I hate the Ohio State Buckeyes. I will never cheer for them no matter who they’re playing and honestly don’t understand people that can do that. “Well if they can beat USC and get ranked higher then it’ll look better if the Badgers beat them.” No. Any level of misery that can Ohio State can be put through isn’t enough to satisfy a true Badger fan. When their football team lost the National Championship to Florida in 2006, I could not have been happier. Oh yeah, and add Florida football to the list of things I hate. That’s how badly I hate OSU.
Is it possible that I’m envious of the success that Ohio State has had in both sports recently? It’s possible. But, to be completely truthful I couldn’t see myself cheering for Maurice Clarett, Terrelle Pryor, Evan Turner, or any of those one-and-done ballers from a few years back. Ohio State and their athletes are too prima donnic for the Big Ten (pretty sure prima donnic is not a real phrase, but…now it is).
Did I mention their “mascot” is a seed?
The Chicago Bears
Remember the Bears finally turning their franchise around last year by acquiring that Pro Bowl-caliber quarterback Jay Cutler? Remember Kyle Orton then proceeding to outperform Jay Cutler and Cedric Benson running wild in Cincinnati? Haha, me too.
First thing's first. The names of these Chicago teams are even more idiotic than the Vikings and Buckeyes. There are no bears in Chicago. I don’t know the last time there were. There is no reason they should have TWO professional sports teams named after a mammal that doesn’t exist anywhere near the city. And why would one of them be named after the infant version? Real threatening. I have no doubts that a drunken, mustached man could easily destroy a baby bear.
(Short rant: Is it just me or does Wisconsin have, by far, the most fitting team names of any city or state in America? The Brewers, Bucks and Packers all make complete sense. There are no Lions in Detroit. There are no Grizzlies in Memphis. The only other places I can think of whose names all make sense are Miami and Denver/Colorado. There needs to be a national team re-naming conference.)
Back to the Bears. They are the only one of the three pro teams I’ve talked about that have had a relatively decent amount of success in recent years, even making it to a Super Bowl following the 2006 season while being led by possibly the worst quarterback to ever play in the big game, Rex Grossman. Of course they lost in a monsoon to a dome team, but they gave it a good try.
I don’t know what there is to like about a team that rotates offensive skill players nearly every year trying to find a combination sufficient enough to complement their overrated defense. Cutler, while probably one of the franchise’s best quarterback talents ever, is not the answer to their woes. It’s not like he was overwhelmingly successful in Denver, so why would bringing him to a team with significantly less offensive talent make him better? It didn’t, and frankly he’s ruining the one real promising player they had, Matt Forte.
Lovie Smith is now one of the longest tenured coaches in the league and no one knows why. This year they have Mike Martz calling the plays though, which will basically result in Cutler overthrowing Earl Bennett and Devin Aromashodu when Martz calls a go route every other play and Forte continuing to not get the touches he deserves. (Fun fact: Earl Bennett and Jay Cutler played college football together at Vanderbilt. Wait…that’s not a fun fact. No one cares, and if you watched one Bears game this year you should be sick of hearing it. Shut up Collinsworth!)
Basically, we just hate the Bears because they’re from Chicago and it’s fun to watch our team beat up on their team. I really fail to find a reason for anyone on earth who wasn’t around in 1985 to be a Bears fan, but to each his own.
So that’s it. Those are the three crappy organizations that we can all agree are pathetic and inferior to our own, and one whose team is named after a seed. You may ask, “What about the Twins, or any NBA team?” Well, our “rivalry” with the Twins is more of a friendly feud because we aren’t battling them for anything significant, and honestly the NBA is currently short on rivalries in general. A little fire between the Bucks and Bulls would be great, so if you’re reading this Dan Gadzuric (assuming you can read), do something useful for once and punch Joakim Noah in the face. You would instantly become the most popular player in the league.
Now one more thing and I gotta go. I don’t know how strongly I can emphasize that hate is necessary in sport. You can’t truly put all of your will into wanting to beat someone unless you absolutely hate their guts. So, if you read through this article and still insist that you can’t hate someone over a simple game then just pretend that Lou Piniella tried to lure you into his van with free candy when you were eight years old. Trust me, if you gave him the chance, he would have.
