All-Time Favorite Baseball Teams that Weren't Your Team

ThePrideofShiner

Crests prematurely
SoSH Member
Jul 16, 2005
10,687
Washington
90's Mariners for me too. I was stationed at Ft Lewis and got to see them play a bit.

But not 1995. I still remember listening to game 5 of the ALDS on the radio while in the field at Yakima. They can go fuck themselves for that. But otherwise, fun team.
I was in the Kingdome that night. You are right, fuck the Mariners. And frankly all of those 1990s teams, though I saw them play a ton of games.

I grew up on the early '90s Braves because they were always on TBS. When Sid Bream scored that was amazing.
 

joe dokes

Member
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Jul 18, 2005
30,233
1973 San Francisco Giants
1B -- Willie McCovey
2B -- Tito Fuentes
SS -- Chris Speier
3B -- Dave Kingman
OF -- Gary Matthews, Garry Maddox, Bobby Bonds
C -- Dave Rader
Starters: Bryant, Bradley, Marichal, Barr
Relievers: Willoughby, Sosa, Moffitt

Also... 1976 Philadelphia Phillies
1B -- Dick Allen
2B -- Dave Cash
SS -- Larry Bowa
3B -- Mike Schmidt
OF -- Greg Luzinski, Garry Maddox, Jay Johnstone
C -- Bob Boone
Starters: Carlton, Kaat, Lonborg, Christenson
Relievers: McGraw, Garber, Twitchell

Maybe I just really liked Garry Maddox

I also really liked the 2017 Astros before it wasn't cool to like them anymore.
I had a sweet spot for early 70s Giants, too. Mostly from strat-o-matic (in which no balls into the outfield were not caught). Bobby Bonds was going to be Willie Mays. Chris Speier was one of the first offensive SS in an era dominated by the Mark Belangers of the world. And something mysterious about seeing a west-coast team in a shitty looking dark stadium where fans wore winter coats in July (on TV from NY area). And Randy Moffitt was Billie Jean King's brother. Also, they had a a great pre-Berman nickname: John "The Count" Montefusco.
 

InstaFace

The Ultimate One
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Sep 27, 2016
21,753
Pittsburgh, PA
maybe the 1962 SF Giants

Mays, Cepeda, Marichal, McCovey the Alous, Kuenn, they were a great team and a line-drive a few ft away from a championship
Highest leverage plate appearance of all time.

I wonder what a title would've done for baseball in SF. During the peak Mays years, basically till 1967, averaged like 1.5M attendance... and then a huge dropoff to the ~800k range and almost two decades of relative mediocrity, until Kevin Mitchell's MVP year got them the pennant in 1989 and then the Barry Bonds era kept them relevant for a decade-plus.
 

Spacemans Bong

chapeau rose
SoSH Member
The Oakland A's arriving had a lot to do with the attendance drop off. You add the two teams up and you pretty much have the pre-1968 Giants baseball attendance. The A's drew like shit for a decade-plus despite having a bona-fide dynasty and a nicer park than Candlestick -- they barely cracked a million in their best years. Finley was Finley, but it wasn't like people were unaware when the games were happening. It didn't help that SF/Oakland was for many years the smallest two-team market in MLB (it might still be -- it's basically how you define it vs. DC/Baltimore as a market) and Candlestick was a lemon that depressed attendance because it was hard to get to and damn cold.

In some ways, them not getting a World Series worked out pretty well in the long run. Because if they win in '62, the City is probably willing to fund a new stadium or at least doming Candlestick, which was proposed in the early 80s, and they either get stuck there while the price of SF real estate shoots into orbit or they're in a nice but less nice park than Mays Field. Some of the proposals in the mid-80s were for something that looks more like US Cellular Field than Mays Field.
 

Eric1984

my real name is Ben
SoSH Member
Jun 14, 2001
2,762
The 1985 Royals. Sure people will say of course Brett, Wilson(who I loved and feared in equal measure when the Sox went there), White, McRae, Balboni, Saberhagen and nobody could solve the Quis...but I loved that team because of Buddy Biancalana. The man who made me say, hey you know what maybe I could do that. He was a backup most of the year to Onix Concepcion but then the playoffs rolled around (and Concepcion got dinged up) and suddenly Buddy was the starter. He played flawlessly in the field, like a vacuum on the left side of the infield while Brett was making errors all over the place. He hit .278 in the series including the single to right that brought in Sundberg in Game 5 on the road and gave the Royals the lead in the game that turned the series. That was a hell of a team and a player who played his best baseball at the biggest time.
He also became a bit of a cult hero that summer during the Pete Rose hit countdown because of David Letterman's "Race to 4192" Biancalana vs. Rose gag.
 

Eric1984

my real name is Ben
SoSH Member
Jun 14, 2001
2,762
I'm a Tigers fan first, but I've been in Boston 26 years now (more than 1/2 my life) and I was here a lot as a kid visiting my many relatives so the Red Sox have always been y #2 and at this point I've seen more Sox games than Tiger games, so I can't really use either team here (if I did, my favorite Tiger team is the 1987 team that Trammell led to a huge comeback to win the division the last 2 weeks of the season and my favorite Sox team is 2004 -- duh).

The Pirates and Expos were my favorite NL teams as a kid -- my mom is from Pittsburgh and my grandfather used to take me to a Pirates game every year. And we got CBC in Michigan, where I grew up, so I saw the Expos on TV a lot. So I'd have to go with the 1979 Pirates (I loved the Cobra and Pops) and the 1981 Expos (loved Cromartie and Dawson as well as Spaceman in a limited relief role). In more recent years, I'd go with the Mariners from when Griffey arrived through the early 2000s. Loved those teams. I actually saw A-Rod's MLB debut at Fenway in 1994 --same night Val got his unassisted triple play.
 

Wallball Tingle

union soap
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Jul 16, 2005
2,518
Late 80s, early 90s Rangers. Specifically end of career Nolan Ryan. Never knew if he would walk the park or throw a no-hitter. Learned to love nightly baseball as a kid growing up in Texas with those teams, left watching sports behind during my teens, came back to really enjoying it daily with the 2003 Red Sox (living in northeast for college/work).
 
Jul 5, 2018
430
I was a big fan of the '69 Mets. I had just started following baseball and it was exciting to see the Mets come through after being the worst team in baseball history just a few years before. I also thought Tom Seaver was pretty cool. It was an exciting WS, as all but one of the Mets wins were close games.

A guy that worked with my Dad received a pot with Shea grass in it that his father had dug up after the last out. I was in the hospital at the time and he gave it to me as a get well gift. The grass seemed magical to me at the time. We exchanged emails about 40 years later and he confessed that the grass had died in transit and the stuff I was given was from his backyard as he didn't want to dissappoint me.

After 1986, I developed a pathological hatred for the Mets franchise and regretted that they hadn't been swept by the Orioles.
 

ledsox

Member
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Nov 14, 2005
398
'73 Mets for me. I loved Mays and Seaver on that team. Tug McGraw was fun too- Ya Gotta Believe!
Willie was my first favorite player beginning in 1971 so when he went back to NY in 1972, the Mets became my NL team. They gritted through the season and the NLDS and broke my heart when they lost in 7 to the A's. Of course, Mays was cooked but at least i got to see him play in a WS and he got the first hit. I remember a friend came to our front door after game 7 and was laughing because the Mets had lost. I slammed the door in his face and ran upstairs to my room.
 

Savin Hillbilly

loves the secret sauce
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Jul 10, 2007
18,783
The wrong side of the bridge....
I was a big fan of the '69 Mets.
Me too! The Mets were my team growing up, and I had kind of gotten used to the fact that they weren't ever going to win or even be good, and I loved them anyway. So when '69 came it was like waking up Christmas morning resigned to wool socks and Lincoln Logs and finding that Red Ryder under the tree. I have a hard time deciding what was more glorious for me, 1969 or 2004. I feel incredibly lucky to have experienced both.

But that may not really fit the thread prompt, because the Amazin's were to me then what the Sox are to me now. In terms of a team that I really latched onto and enjoyed despite having no specific rooting interest in them....this year's Nats would be a contender, and the '82 Brewers.

Even though they were a Sox nemesis, I'd also join InstaFace in naming the late 90s Indians teams of Thome, Lofton, Vizquel, Alomar, Giles etc. There were a lot of outstanding and distinctive talents in those lineups, and they were masters at putting together formidable but ace-free rotations.
 

patinorange

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Aug 27, 2006
30,660
6 miles from Angel Stadium
1971 Pittsburgh Pirates

As a failed Little League catcher, I loved Manny Sanguillen. But that team had everything -- Clemente, Stargell, Dock Ellis, Blass, Moose and Veale, Hebner, Cash, Al Oliver, Bruce Kison's funky delivery. Even the role players on that team read like a list of That Guys.

And they beat the f'ing Orioles
I loved watching Sanguillen with that funky catching style and Clemente catching a routine flyball was awesome.
Once in a while they were on the game of the week and it was a treat. It was like baseball from another planet. And they were so good.