Major League Baseball: How to bandwagon if your team is out

The “State Farm Fan” (a.k.a. The “Mr. Rogers Fan”)

Generally, most Major League Baseball fans want to be “good neighbors.” These are the fans that haven’t necessarily relocated, but maybe have an adjacent team that has done pretty well. Often times, these kind of teams tend to balance each other out.

This postseason, many New York Mets fans will suddenly don their pinstripes to support the New York Yankees. Likewise, a handful of Baltimore Orioles fans will pick up the banner for the Washington Nationals and embrace them as “team number two.”

This strategy works very well for fans of teams that have neighbors in the opposing league. So, if the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim find themselves just outside of the playoff picture within the next two weeks, don’t be surprised to see many of them start going all in on the Los Angeles Dodgers. The same goes for Cincinnati Reds fans, who will suddenly champion the Cleveland Indians.

But this strategy also has its flaws. Many die-hard Chicago White Sox fans can’t stand the Chicago Cubs and vice-versa. So when the Cubs square off this October, the number of south-siders that suddenly change their pinstripes from black to blue will be very low.

It also falls short for fans of the Texas Rangers and San Francisco Giants. For the Rangers, it has more to do with the fact that they got along just fine with the Houston Astros for a very long time. But then, Bud Selig in all of his genius (or lack thereof) decided to put the Astros in the American League. Now, most Rangers fans have a difficult time cheering for a division rival.

The same goes for the Giants fans, who would likely rather allow Aroldis Chapman to fire fastballs at their fingers while holding razor blades than cheer for the Dodgers. Granted, they never really had the “good neighbor” relationship with LA like the Rangers and Astros did. But that overall sports hate is certainly there. Yet, there are answers for them as well.