I Confess

I'll come clean. One of my favorite websites is Sports Illustrated and I try to read The Daily List every day. I enjoy these lists almost as much as I enjoy the top ten sports highlights on ESPN (which I try to catch on TV at 6:55 am before I walk out the door to work). SI's snarky columnists write with an edge that I appreciate and they are usually dead on.

Today's column gave me more than a few nodding head moments. I take exception with item #1 (because I do love the Red Sox) but I'll bite on the rest.

Here's the Daily List from our savvy friends at SI.com:

Five Sports Franchises We Love to Hate

By Lang Whitaker, SI.com

What's fun about rooting for sports teams isn't just rooting for the teams we like, but cheering against the teams we don't like. I'm an Atlanta Braves fan, but would being a Braves fan be as satisfying and gratifying without the existence of the New York Mets to provide the yin to the Braves' yang? It's nothing personal -- I have many Mets fans I consider friends. I just don't like your collection of athletes because they're you're collection of athletes. Here are the five most fun sports franchises to hate...

1. Any Major Team From Boston: The Red Sox, Celts and Patriots currently occupy that number one slot. Not so much because they all have more money than the treasury and have basically managed to assemble All-Star teams, but because they all win, all the time, and their fans love nothing more than to make sure everyone else knows about this. And nobody loves a winner who rubs it in.

2. New York Yankees: Run by a family of husky men with bad haircuts, the Yanks win and win and win and then remain competitive by throwing money at their issues.

3. Los Angeles Lakers: Lakers fans seem to have some sort of "us against them" mentality, and believe that if people aren't Lakers fans, they must hate anything and everything to do with the Lakers and/or Kobe Bryant. They may be correct.

4. THE Ohio State University: Buckeye fans have had the legs for their argument for dominance knocked out from under them lately, what with the way they keep losing in championship games. But you'd never know State can't win the big one by listening to them Buckeyes. (By the way, we get it: You're THE Ohio State University. Nice sweater vests.)

5. Chelsea: After a few years of mediocrity, the Blues were purchased by a billionaire, bought every great player in Europe, installed a coach who called himself "the special one" and spent a few years dominating everyone. The Special One is gone, but that sense of entitlement from their fans remains.

So, what's your take?