Fair Weather Fans: Cheating Themselves.

There was a "tease" on Yahoo's sports page the other day. It said there was a new most popular NFL team. You had to click to find out who it was.

Well of course it's the Packers, I thought.

I clicked

I was right.

It was really a no-brainer. The Packers won the Super Bowl last year and are the best team this year. Of course they would be the most popular.

I have a message for you "Johnny come lately" Packer fans: You don't get it. You're missing out on one of the great joys of being sports fan.

I'm a Washington Nationals fan. The Nats had a terrible team in 2009, a bad team in 2010, a so-so team in 2011 and figure to have a good team in 2012.

By rooting for the Nats through all those bad years, I'm going to enjoy watching next year's team that much more.

I've developed a deeper emotional connection to the team and will get a lot more satisfaction from its success than I would have if I hadn't rooted for them during the lean years.

I kinda feel sorry for Yankee fans. They make the playoffs every year. They've been so good for so long that anything less than a World Series is a disappointment.

On the other hand, I enjoyed the heck out of the 80 wins my Nats achieved in 2011, largely because they only had 69 wins in 2011 and 59 wins in 2009.

So if you want to get some real satisfaction out of being a sports fan and don't already have a favorite team, I'd suggest you pick a couple of bad ones, like the Cleveland Browns and the Houston Astros.

Stay with them while they lose, then you'll really have fun when they win.