Question of the week: Who do you hate the most?

[Brian]

Not: "The Dude!" 

[gregmag]

I was in high school in 1982. I moved to St. Louis in 2008. I was here in 2011 when the wildcard and a bad umpiring call against Atlanta helped the Cardinals climb over us to steal a World Series. They only won in 82 because fingers was hurt. I care less about 2006, but they had absolutely no business winning that year. So they got all puffed up about being three-time undeserving recent champs, their fans got predictably arrogant about it, and they had a bunch of loathsome people on their “great” teams in those early years I was here: LaRussa, Molina, Chris Carpenter, Berkman, Pujols. Oh, and did you notice how they went a good decade there somehow managing to roster virtually no Black American players? Yeah, LaRussa was awesome.

But a lot of my good friends are Cardinals fans, it really is a great ballpark and a good fan base in person, they’ve very helpfully sucked for a few years — and now they’re building the kind of team I actually enjoy watching, with no apparent raging jerks as far as I can tell. They’re basically trying to be the Brewers south, and why wouldn’t they?

Meanwhile, the Cubs are kind of a bargain basement Phillies – aging, entitled, boring. Their only significant young position players are a couple of cultists and a self-absorbed misogynist. Their fans, both in person and online, are miserable. Dodgers fans think they’re entitled to win because their team has money, but at least they’re actually winning. Cubs fans get mad at their team for not winning and whine that they’re entitled to win because of their money. Worst of both worlds. So for me, now, it’s the Cubs, and it’s not close.