How Do You Pick a Favorite Team?

As some of you may know, I am a huge New York Yankee fan.

When I was six-years old, I attended my first Yankee game and fell in love.

It was the first professional sports game I ever saw, and I wanted to be the cool younger sister who knew all about baseball.

In my area, all they sell is Yankees and Mets merchandise—I chose the Bombers simply because I had zero knowledge of the New York Mets organization.

From that first game forward, my father and brother kept me updating with what was going on in Yankee world. I learned about the greats: The Babe, Lou Gehrig, Joe Dimaggio and Mickey Mantle. They taught me about greats from Yogi Berra, Don Larsen, Billy Martin, and Reggie Jackson, all the way up to Derek Jeter, Paul O'Neill, and Mariano Rivera.

I became a fan for simple reasons:

1. They were close. I live about 45 minutes from Yankee Stadium, and they are the closest baseball team around.

2. The tradition of winning. For a young kid, it's easy to follow the team that always wins. When I was six, the Yankees won their third World Series of the decade.

3. The press. The Bergen Record was filled with tales of O'Neill, Jeter, Roger Clemens, and the like. It was very easy for me to keep track of who was who, and I soon began to appreciate the greatness that was the Yankee lineup.

Now, I'm faced with a problem.

I've never been a follower of football.

My brother played the game for 12 years, yet I never bothered to learn anything about it besides what position he played.

All I knew was that the Giants and Jets were from New York and the Packers were from Green Bay, Wisconsin (my father and brother are lifelong Packers fans). I would hear stories of Brett Favre this, and Brett Favre that.

Whenever someone asked me what my favorite football team was, I'd automatically say, "The Packers!!"

I realize now that I never really meant it. I knew nothing about the franchise whatsoever, and I only claimed to be a Packers fan because my relatives were.

So now, as I pursue a career in journalism (particularly sports journalism), I feel it's time that I learned about the sport of football. I told my brother about this, and his response was, "Well, what's your favorite team?"

I couldn't answer.

The process of acquiring a favorite team is not easy, and I know I can't just randomly pick a team out of a hat, but I'm at a loss.

Do we choose our team, or does our team choose us?

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