I made the Tampa Bay Bucs win, people. The TAMPA BAY BUCS.
Okay, so this is mostly a tongue-in-cheek post BUT, I do have a pretty good resume of moving to an area, rooting for the local team, and that team winning shortly thereafter.
I've moved around, a lot. All over the US and now Canada. I've Been Everywhere is my song, literally. Though I was born and mostly raised in LA, I'm not gonna count the Dodgers '88 win because I wasn't much of a sports fan back then. Now if they'd won in say, '96, I'd totally take credit for that. :D I'm also not counting the Braves, because even though they were my top team for a good 12 years, I never lived in Georgia and there was nothing flukey or weird about their WS win. What's weird is that they didn't win more. Heck, I might even count that as a fail!
But on to the good stuff. Oh, and anyone can start rooting for a team after they win (hi, every Yankee fan outside of NY). My special skill is rooting for them right before they win. So we'll start with the early 2000s, when I moved from NC to FL. My two main rooting interests at the time were the Braves and NASCAR driver Bobby Labonte (because you have to have a driver if you live in NC or FL. Seriously, if you don't they issue you one at the border.) Upon arriving in FL, I pretty quickly adopted the Bucs as my team for one reason: their quirky, vastly entertaining and awesomely good kicker Martin "Automatica" Gramatica. And they needed a good kicker because holy crap, they could not score TDs. That team was all defense and field goals, which would have been boring as fuck if not for the aforementioned Mr. Gramatica.
He was just so delighted about kicking a ball through a post! It was contagious!
Long story short, the Bucs won the SB, their first and only to date, a few years into my fandom, and Bobby Labonte won the Winston Cup (whatever it's called now, I haven't followed NASCAR in ages). An honorable mention here is the Ohio State Buckeyes championship. I've never been a CFB fan; I don't like the lack of a playoff system and real championship game. The game itself is fine but that's kind of a buzzkill. Anyway, my bf at the time was an Ohioan living in FL and a huge Buckeyes fan, so I kinda adopted the team for that time period. (Hey, that Buckeye mascot is pretty cute.) And what do you know, during that short window of time, they won whatever semblance of a championship there was. I don't even like OSU anymore, but I'll half-count it. :P
In 2004, I moved to New England. We all know what's coming here. My family is from New England (CT), so I'd been a fan of the Red Sox, Pats, Celtics, Bruins and UCONN Huskies (the alma mater of my mom and several of my relatives) to varying degrees throughout the years. Mostly the Red Sox though, especially in the Nomar years. OMG, I loved me some Nomar. So I moved to RI in April '04, right at the start of the season. The UCONN men's and women's basketball teams had just won national championships (yep, totes taking credit for that too) so I was super pumped to be in the epicenter of so many of my sports fandoms.
The Red Sox '04 victory and cursebreaking came at a price though: my beloved Nomar was traded midseason. He never got to experience a WS victory. Curse breaking is a painful and messy business. I know, I watch Supernatural. In addition to the Nomar sacrifice, Curt Schilling had to appease the baseball gods with his own blood before the celebrating could begin. Scary stuff! But I was there for my boys, I watched every game, went to Fenway for the first (and not last) time. I bought a copy of that Dropkick Murphys "Tessie" song and started calling myself Tessie. I don't know if I listened to much else that year (and really, looking back on '04, that's not a bad thing). OMG, I wanted this to be the year. Even with Nomar gone, everything was aligned.
I went to game 3 of the ALCS. Yeah, that game. 19-8 Yankees. The only time I ever left a baseball game early. Before I left I shed a tear; it landed with a sad plop on the old, hallowed ground of Fenway Park (or possibly in my Rem Dawg, but the other way is more poetic).
Cue, the biggest comeback in sports history. The Red Sox finally defeated the hated behemoth that was the Yankees. In GLORIOUS fashion, so glorious it almost bent time and undid the pain of '03. It actually happened. And I was there. Still the favorite moment of my life. The WS win was almost anti-climactic it was so easy, except well, obviously it wasn't. It was also glorious.
Then the Pats won a bunch of times, and even the Celtics, who I watched all through their lowly last-place season where they won like two games. You're welcome, New England. And, thank you for all the awesome sports memories. (I can't count the Bruins victory as mine, because even though they're the only hockey team I've ever rooted for, I'd been away from NE for a few years by then and wasn't really paying much attention.)
My Pats fandom also waned a bit upon moving, and I was immediately struck by Packers QB Aaron Rodgers, so I started pulling for the Packers at the start of his tenure. Aaaaand they won. And likely will again. Maybe this season.
And here we are today. I thought I'd met my match with the Blue Jays. I moved to Canada in 2012, and they were thoroughly mired in suck and one of the longest playoff droughts in baseball. The longest, until this year. But it looks like it might finally be coming to fruition this year. Just winning the AL East, hell, just making the playoffs is a pretty big deal, but they have a real shot to go all the way. As good a shot as anyone else, I'd say.
So that's my little sports saga. Is there anything to all this? Am I some kind of sports fairy? (Hey, it sounds more fun than being a tooth fairy.) Eh, probably not, but if the Jays win you know I'm gonna take a little credit. ;)
I mean, Tampa Bay Bucs, people. COME ON. (And sorry, Florida, for leaving you and condemning the Bucs to eternal suckage again. And sorry about the Florida half of FGL too, in case I had anything to do with that.)
I've got a pink Jays hat and a red leaf, let's do this thing Toronto!!
