Which teams have the most/least fair-weather fans?

Warning: long rant post.

This is what really bothers me about people calling others "fair weather fans". I started watching baseball with my family when I moved to America at 5 years old. The oldest picture I have with a ballcap is at age 7 in 2000 with a Red Sox hat. I spent 3 weeks every summer in Cape Cod watching Cape Cod league ball and NESN network. My mom was from Boston. I learned the sport watching the Red Sox. I remember being in Cape Cod watching Barry Bonds set the home run record. I remember being ecstatic for the Sox breaking the curse.

I went to my first Nationals game in '05 at RFK. I've been following the team (i.e., Ryan Zimmerman and Livan Hernandez' stats in the newspaper) since '05. I've been to literally hundreds of Nationals game since then. I've seen at least one Boston game in Baltimore (as I live in DC) every year since and make it up to Boston for a series every 1-3 years.

But the second I talk to somebody about baseball and I tell them I'm a Nationals fan, and secondarily a Red Sox fan, I am automatically a bandwagon fan who doesn't respect the sport. Half the time this comes from somebody who doesn't even know what OBP is and it infuriates me. Heck, even my girlfriend from Baltimore knows I've been a diehard Nats fan for years and have followed and rooted for the Red Sox since 2000, but when the O's kept the Sox out of the playoffs in Game 162 in '12 (or '11?) she said "oh you wouldn't understand why we were so happy, we're big time fans". I'm like...bullshit you can't even name four starters for the O's, stop saying I don't understand the sport and time devotion to teams.

/rant

On a more on-topic note, and it's hard to say this without sounding biased, but the New York Mets definitely are currently flooded with bandwagon fans (just like last year, it was the Royals). My Uncle has been a diehard Mets fan for my whole life and before that. He would wear a Mets jersey in public and Mets pajamas, and nobody else would even acknowledge him unless it was to say "Hey why isn't that Yankees gear?". In the past year, the amount of "diehard, lifelong Mets fans" he's come into (people he has known for years, mind you) is absurd.

I understand winning makes bandwagon fans and if anything I'm happy a winning team sells out and all....but I largely believe that longtime baseball fans (read BASEBALL fans, not "oh I've always loved the team just only follow them when they're good") don't judge other baseball fans for their fandom as they can talk more about the MVP Bryce Harpers and Dustin Pedroias, and can actually talk about the sport.

Fuck.

/r/baseball Thread Parent