Tap-In Question: How would you rank your hatred for the other four AL East teams?

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• #1 Red Sox and John Gibbons
  # 2 Blue Jays
  # 3 Yankees

  • Do you mean John Farrell or so you hate Gibbons that much?

• You are spot on once again Dan

• This one is pretty easy:

  1. Yankees - because they're the Evil Empire of MLB. They always have been. They always will be. At least until someone else wins as many WS championships and is always in the running for the top FA talent.
  2. Blue Jays - Because Jose Bautista. If Duquette thinks the fans hate him enough to not try to sign him in FA, why shouldn't that animosity pass on to the whole rest of the team he's on? Oh, Donaldson is a d-bag too. And John Gibbons.
  3. Red Sox - It's close on this one because of the recent bean ball war (which I hope has passed,) but these guys don't have David Ortiz anymore and I just can't find it in my baseball heart to truly dislike Bogaerts, Bradley, and Betts. They go out and play hard, keep their mouths shut, and take care of business. I actually like and respect Pedroia. The real black mark on them, in my opinion, is John Farrell. The guy makes up the lamest excuses for why his players did something, and actually acts like he expects us to believe it. Whines a lot too.
  4. Rays - If not for the O's, I'd root for the Rays in the division. They're the little guy who develops talent only to lose it to big market teams, but they always find a way to at least be competitive. Kiermaier and Longoria are hard to really dislike because they just play the game. I can't think of anyone on their roster that I immediately think of as despicable. There may be a few, but the competition in the AL East for an all-douchebag team is pretty strong, and the Rays just don't make the cut. So, not nearly as much hate for them.

  • Good assessment. It has me thinking about another hate topic for the week. Drink chip.

• 1 Red Sox - mainly because their fans are insufferable
  2 Blue Jays
  3 Yankees

  • I do believe the Red Sox fans passed the others a few years ago. Yankees have always been cocky and entitled. That's what happens w 27 titles. Seems like some Sox fans kicked into another gear after their recent success tho. At least that's what you all have told me.

    • As much as the Yankee fan screaming "27 championships" irks me, it's true.

      Years ago (07-08 maybe) had the misfortune of attending an O's Red Sox game. The Sox were pounding us. Every time they scored the Sox fan behind my friend would jump up , his kid was in his lap. His kid would kick my friend in the head. When I pointed this out and asked nicely if they could watch their feet, he obliged and then his fellow Sox fans complained about "at Fenway we just deal with it". It was all I could do not to ask if I could kick them in the head and see if they liked it.

• Great question! And well timed too. After all, if we can't win a baseball game, why not wallow in baseball hatred for our despicable division rivals? Here are mine:

  1 - Red Sox. Not quite as many players to hate any more (many are Cubs now), but Farrell makes up for that nicely. Mainly it's their fans though. By far the most obnoxious I've encountered. I once had a nice, librarian/grandma looking lady, a vice principle, leading a huge group of middle schoolers, start an "Orioles suck!!!" chant midway through a game they were losing. Even the kids were embarrassed.
  2 - Blue Jays. Jose Bautista. Need I say more? OK. John Gibbons (ever notice how closely both he and Farrell resemble Stan from American Dad?). Kevin Pillar. Fans throwing beers at our fellas. That awful font.
  3 - Yankees. It pains me to place the original evils so low on the list. I really hate Girardi and the yearly "he should be manager of the year!" BS, as he's destroying his own bullpen through overuse. John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman are horrifying. Aaron Judge is quickly attaining Jeter-esque hatability. And there's something about Chase Headley that makes me physically ill. Ooh... Brett Gardner too. Freakin' cueball with teeth...

  • I reversed Boston and the Yankees because the Yankees are still the Yankees to me. The Red Sox fans are indeed obnoxious. No doubt about that. Over the long term though, their players are not as easy to truly despise as Yankees and Blue Jays players are. Farrell and Gibbons cancel each other out when comparing the Sox and Jays. I totally agree with you on the Jays though. Bautista is all it takes to make me really not like a team. Had the O's seen fit to sign him, I'd have to be a fan for 8/9 of the at bats and find a way to cope with the other one each time through the order. I expect that there will be close to a consensus with this as the Jays' position. My dislike for them went all the way back to the Cito Gaston years though and not pitching Mussina in the All Star Game. I had a Cito Sucks shirt back in the day too.

  • Hilarious stuff from both of you In this. Drink chips

• 1. NYY - The "empire". Hated them always
  2. Blue Jays - Classless beer thrower fans and obnoxious players (Bautista, Grilli, etc...)
  2. Red sox.....do I have to explain it?

  And of course, the least hatred....TB

  • In Grilli's defense, he serves up nice pitches to blast into the left field bleachers.

  • Interesting to see the Yankee hatred remains strong in the face of the Jays and Sox being better recently.

    • It's one thing to hate Jabba the Hutt while you're in his clutches, but you still know that the Empire is worse in the long run because they're not going away anytime soon.

• Red sucks. I will never suffered their fans...been at Fenway when they booed Clemens returning and at OPACY for multiple 'Orioles Suck' chants. If shoe was reversed, we'd go home bruised or beaten or worse and that's before their racist pig actions!!

  • So, not a fan of the Red Sox fans, eh?

• 4. TB Rays: Honestly, I don't even want to put the Rays on this list. The nice guy in me says that they are a financially strapped team in a dump stadium, sitting smack in the middle of a region whose Yankee fandom is second only to New York itself, who have been mostly terrible through their entire history. Give em a pass. The AL East old money snob in me says they still gotta earn the hate. Go start a rivalry with the Astros or somebody, you bunch of greenhorns.
  3. NY Yankees: Surprising placement here, but my disdain for the "Evil Empire" is muted by other members of this list, as well as an appreciation for their incomparable history.
  2. Toronto Blue Jays: This is probably a generational thing. I became a hardcore baseball fan just at the time the Jays were breaking the O's hearts and stealing division crowns in the early 90's. I've disliked them ever since. Jose Bautista is an a****le and Cito sucks.
  1. The team that wishes they were the Yankees but aren't: hating NY is so last millennium. That was before the Boston team and fan base took an inspiring World Series win and used it to become the most obnoxious, pompous, insufferable bunch of media whores in the sports universe. If the Yankees are the Evil Empire, Boston is ISIS. A bunch of pissant whiners akin to that nephew of yours who comes home comes home from one semester of college and thinks he's suddenly smarter than everyone. F-- the Boston Red Sox, and the bogus, ESPN manufactured "underdog" narrative they rode in on.

  • This is the kind of post i expected from most (with Stache flair, of course).

    • Sorry for the language Dan-o. To be fair though, this was probably not the best subject to bring up in the middle of a 6 game free fall.

  • What he said!!

• Yankees And Boston are tied for first.
  Toronto is third.
  And the Rays aren't even on my radar, but since I don't not hate them, they get fourth.

  Honestly though, these days I spend more time hating this Orioles team than anyone else. Is that healthy?

  • Probably healthy to share. Drink chip.

• 1. Yankees - They trade Chapman in order to restock their farm system, then re-sign him in the offseason. The way MLB is structured, the Yankees should win every year; they have that many systemic advantages. That's why I hate them more than any other franchise in baseball. They are second in all of sports behind Irsay's team.

  2. Red Sox 3. Blue Jays

  4. Rays

  • The nature of the system certainly does favor big market teams. It's not so much who wins championships. Yes, that matters. But what matters more is sustainability. Look at KC. They had two great seasons, then everyone they developed became too expensive to keep, either through free agency or arbitration. Same happens with a lot of small market teams. They usually end up in the middle of the pack with one or two that have a great developmental crop that turns into a solid two-to-three season team, maybe getting to, possibly even winning, the World Series.

    I know that there's a belief that the luxury tax solves a lot of these woes, but I don't agree. A team can take a luxury tax hit for a year or two to win a championship if they have deep pockets. The O's, Royals, Rays, etc., can't compete long term, and a lot of times can't pony up for a big upgrade toward a championship like that. Milwaukee is having a great season so far with the lowest payroll in baseball. Anyone want to wager on whether that will continue for years to come? Not likely. Top payrolls in baseball belong to the Dodgers, Yankees, Red Sox, Tigers, Blue Jays, Rangers, Giants, Cubs, Nats, then the Orioles. And for the O's it's a huge stretch to be at that level. They're a mid-market team trying to compete with big market teams from LA, NY, Boston, Detroit, Toronto, Dallas/FW area, SF, Chicago, and Washington DC.

    I really want to see a salary cap introduced in baseball to level the field a bit, so to speak. It has created parity in the NFL where good coaching and management become more important than bottomless pockets. The Pats are so good because they leverage their assets well. The Browns stink because they've been horribly mismanaged. But they all have the same figures to play with as a bottom line. In baseball, if you can't push up to the limit before getting into luxury tax hell, you can't compete for long. That needs to change.

  • There is that economic advantage; which makes it even more interesting when they go four-seasons-plus without a playoff win.

  • My comment for bigdaddy was meant here. But it works for both.

    • I assume you're referring to the Yankees not winning a playoff game in 4 years? While that's true for them, look at who makes the playoffs year in and year out, and who ends up in the LCS and WS. In the time since the last Yankees playoff win, 24 out of 40 playoff spots have gone to teams in the larger half of the markets in MLB and 10 of 16 LCS spots have been filled by them. Half of WS spots have been large market teams and 3 of 4 champions have been large markets.

      Since 2000, 67% of WS appearances are big market teams and 70% of the champions are big market teams.

      It actually makes the O's run over the last five seasons quite impressive, considering the ups and downs that mid and small market teams face from year to year. It's almost as if management has done a stellar job or something, while we all look at the deficiencies in the parent club as well as throughout the organization and lament how the O's aren't fully loaded to compete. This, to me, speaks volumes about the job Buck Showalter has done. I doubt any manager in MLB gets more out of less than he does. Pretty remarkable really.

• History compels me to keep the Great Satan of Baseball, the Bronx club, atop the list. The list of reasons is too long to enumerate. Combo of their success in a financially rigged system and their refusal to integrate until eight years had passed since another team in their same city took the first step.
  The Manson Family, aka Red Sox, are 2. Climbing fast in light of recent events. Not fair to the team per se. Management responded well to it. Still not fond. 3) Team Bat Flip.

• Among all opposition, I vote the Walgreens behind Satan in my Contempt Index. Stole the logo. Lucked into generational players by tanking. Wrung hundreds of millions from city govt in DC. Harmed Orioles just by coming into being. Hat flipping, bat flipping Harper and the whole "Natitude" thing also obnoxious. Awfully smug for a team that has never won a postseason series.

  • Very interesting Rob. My sense is the Nationals are behind 3 AL East teams on most lists. Maybe I'm wrong.

  • I suspect you are right. I think I'm an outlier on this.

• 1-Toronto
  2-Ny
  3-Boston
  4-Tampa

  1-Gibbons
  2-Farre;;
  3-Cash
  4-Girardi....i wish we would have hired him when he interviewed for our job

  • It was Girardi's job to take. He turned it down, knowing Yankees' job was on horizon.

• 1. Jose Bautista
  2. Big Poppi
  3. Did I mention Jose Bautista?
  4. Give me some time on the Yankee pups.

  • Used to be A-Rod and Jeter, even though Jeter never really did anything to be obnoxious besides getting gifted a HR by that Maier kid back in 1996. A-Rod and his roids made him unbearable, plus he was cocky as all get out. It was more a collective thing with the Yankees than an individual player that made them unlikable, although I always thought Clemens was a punk in Boston, Toronto, and NY. Paul O'Neill was a whiny little $#!7 too.

    • I think Bautista's presence keeps the Jays on this list. No one active gets booed more at Camden Yards.

• 1) Red Sox (it has always been the yankees but recently I just cannot take the Sox and especially their fans).
  2) Yankees (Evil Empire for sure)
  3) Blue Jays (Bautista and Donaldson).

  • Reasonable, succinct list. Drink chip.

• I have been an Orioles fan for over 50 years. I have probably hated the Yankees for that long and nothing will ever change that.

  • keeping it old school

• I dislike the Rays the least. Now that Maddon is gone, they don't bother me.
  2. Yankees - I don't root for them but they have earned the right to be arrogant. You can't argue with their success. They get a bad rap because they have the reputation of buying players. But most of their best players came up thru the system: Rivera, Pettitte, Posada, Jeter, Williams, Mattingly, Gardner, Betances, etc.
  3. Blue Jays - They are rude and they are arrogant. Their fans are awful.
  4. Red Sox - Red Sox Nation gets under my skin. They think they invited baseball and feel it is their divine right to win. I liked them better when they were humble.
  Let's face it. In the AL East, everybody hates everybody else.

  • GS, that last line says it well -- except maybe Tampa

• 1. Red Sox - Back in my elementary to high school years, this spot would have been far and away the Yankees. But now, it unquestionably belongs to the Red Sox. There is no team in American sports that I DETEST more than the Red Sox (2nd place would be the Steelers). Growing up, one of my favorite players was Pedro Martinez and I also really liked Nomar Garciaparra (when they weren't playing the O's, of course). But all of a sudden, after winning the 2004 World Series, they became so obnoxious. I guess they forgot that they sucked for 86 years! Just look at the easily disliked players since then: Manny Ramirez, DAVID ORTIZ, Johnny Damon, Coco Crisp, Jon Lester, Jonathan Papelbon, Josh Beckett, DUSTIN PEDROIA, Jacoby Ellsbury, Clay Bucholz (I always thought he looked like a junkie from West Virginia), John Lackey, Jarrod Saltalamacchia, JOHN FARRELL, Mike Napoli, Shane Victorino, Xander Bogaerts, Jackie Bradley Jr., Hanley Ramirez, MOOKIE #$@%! BETTS, Andrew Benintendi, Chris Sale, Craig Kimbrel.... Need I go on?

  And is there anything more annoying on God's green earth than a Red Sox (or Yankees) invasion at Camden Yards and hearing, "Let's go Red Sox!" all throughout the game, and seeing and hearing lots of Boston fans applauding when a Red Sock is introduced or stand and cheer them on? Ugggh....

  2. Blue Jays - I know O's fans hate the Jays going all the way back to the early '90s when Gaston didn't play Hoiles or start Mussina in the All-Star game we hosted. But considering I was only 4 years old at the time, I don't remember any of that. I mainly remember the Carlos Delgado days, and while I disliked them, I didn't hate them. I didn't begin to start hating them until 2012. How quickly those idiot Canucks go from caring only about hockey to being die-hard Jays fans all of a sudden after hibernating since '93. And not only that, they're well-known douchebags.

  3. Yankees - Like I said, growing up, the Yankees were by far #1. For me, it all started with Jeffrey Maier. I was only 8 years old at the time, but I remember thinking, "But...that's not fair...." That was the moment that I realized that sometimes, not even sports are fair, regardless of rules, and thus began my hatred for Derek Jeter (whom I've come to respect now from a purely baseball perspective), the Yankees, and anybody named "Jeff" (just kidding). My dad is still convinced that the Yankees are run underground by the Mafia. Seriously. The Yankees Dynasty from 1996-2003 just made me hate them even more. Let's not even mention Mussina. I loved him, and I still do. And I don't blame him for leaving; and I even understand why he chose New York (he grew up a Yankees fan and he wanted to win a Championship, and New York was clearly the best team at the time). But that still doesn't take the sting away. And for current reasons, the Yankees look to be building a potential "dynasty" again with their stacked farm system. As much as I hate these two teams, God knows how I wish the Orioles were run more like the Red Sox and Yankees.... building up their farm systems, having a strong presence in Latin America, etc.

  4. Rays - Like everyone else, I have no beef with Tampa Bay. In fact, if I had to choose a 2nd team other than the Orioles to root for, it would be the Rays. Why? I attended college in the Tampa Bay area for 5 years, and my dad's side of the family has been living there since the late '70s and would go visit them every spring break/summer growing up. The Tampa area is like my 2nd home. Naturally, while I was in college in the middle of the Orioles "Dark Years", I began to develop a fondness for the Rays. At first, they were just lovable losers. Then in 2008, when they had an on-field brawl with the Yankees in Spring Training and then James Shields and Coco Crisp brawling, it showed me that they weren't going to take crap anymore. Plus, guys like Fred McGriff, Carl Crawford, Evan Longoria, Akinori Iwamura, Ben Zobrist, Joe Maddon, and others were easily likable. I've been to many Rays games, and while their stadium admittedly does feel like they're playing ball in a warehouse, it is a lot of fun to go to. When it doesn't affect the Birds, I always root for the Rays to do well. But make no mistake, while I root for the Rays on the side, the Orioles own my heart. They always have and they always will.

  • Love the detailed response, Camden. Two drink chips for those kinds of specifics.

• 1) Yankees - Mike Mussina broke my heart worse than 90% of my ex girlfriends.
  2) Blue Jays - Oddly enough Mussina related again. This time Cito Gasten's snub during the '93 ASG
  3) Red Sox - Would be higher but w/o Ortiz, meh.
  4) Pittsburgh Steelers
  5) Rays

  • I wondered if Big Papi's absence knocked the Red Sox down on some lists. And the inclusion of the Steelers made me laugh.

• There's only one team that I hate and that's the DC invaders. They moved into our territory and drained our Fan base. I will never forgive them for that. As for the AL east, I repeat that I don't hate any of the teams. Of course every team has a few d-bags who I can't stand, and I suppose that Manny is the first guy who comes to mind for our opponents. He does come off as a cocky hothead, but he's our cocky hothead and I love that he's on our team.

  • Here's another question, one that can't be answered here, I suppose: Are the Orioles atop anyone's list, especially with the inclusion of Machado? Some fans in Toronto or Boston, perhaps? I dunno.

• 1. NY Yankees- As an O's fan always have. Jeffery Mayer made it ingrained forever.

  2. Toronto Blow Jays- Take away being a team on foreign soil. They act like a bunch of D-bags ever since they won their 2 WS. And the current incarnation makes it worse in recent years.

  3. Boston Red Sox- They're fans can get as bad as Yankee fans since they finally broke their curse in 2004. Plus their recent antics. Still hate the first 2 more.

  4. Tampa Rays- No hate here at all. I actually hate the Nats more by a long shot.

  • The Rays are just misplaced in this division. Not sure who could replace them in the AL that could fit into the Hate Spectrum like the other three.

• Yankees. Redsoxs. Toronto. Tampa

• sorry meant John Farrell

  • what I figured. But coulda gone either way.

• 1. Yankees. Big gap between them and second place. The accent alone makes me cringe.
  2. Blue Jays. Yeah Bautista but I went to a game last season and some of their fans were behind us and they were the epitome of douchbaggery. I always thought Canadians to be passive but they were a bunch of drunk aggressive...well, douches.
  3. Red Sox. They would've been higher but went to Fenway last season and had a great time. Because of their Machado related actions this season they may move back into 2nd. Don't get me started on the Patriots though.
  4. Tampa Bay...I mean it's Tampa Bay. It's not like there's this traditional rivalry with TB.

  • Again, hatred runs deep. I get that, Old school pinstripe disdain.

• o: