The Egregious Eight

I don’t hate the Yankees anymore.

I really, really, really, really don’t like the Yankees, but I don’t hate them the way I used to. From 1998 to 2000 the Yankees won three straight World Series. Now that was an easy team to hate. Not only did they get the better of every team I liked in that era, but every single call went their way.

Today’s Yankees are a little tougher to hate. Their ever-bloated roster and payroll leads only to an enjoyable succession of playoff losses. While before the Yankees’ focus was deep pitching, the team now thinks World Series wins are awarded on the strength of total career All-Star selections. I still root for them to lose-that 2004 ALCS was amazing-but it’ll take a World Series win for me to really care again.

And so, my rankings for Hole Punch Sports’ most hated teams. In the spirit of, um, Saturday and Sunday, we’ll make it an elite eight.

8. The Indianapolis Colts, NFL: The Colts, as a franchise, are tough to hate on the whole. They had Johnny Unitas, who was a great player but who doesn’t really evoke strong feelings today.

They were also one of the worst teams to make it into the original Tecmo Bowl. (And by the way, that’s what real men played, not this sissy Super Tecmo garbage.) That didn’t evoke strong feelings, either, except that I always wanted the randomly-generated computer opponent to be a terrible team like the Colts. When my brother John became clearly dominant at that game we always made him play as the Colts. But even that is hard to be sincere about, because Tecmo Bowl had only the NFLPA license-it used real player names-but not the NFL license, meaning that many of the real-life Colts’ players just happened to play together for a non-descript team in blue-and-white jerseys in Indianapolis. Buncha cheapskates.

Anyway, today’s Colts organization features what is easily one of the sporting world’s most loathsome rosters. I don’t really need to get into detail about my well-documented distaste for the stylings of Peyton Manning, but let’s focus on the fact that this team’s No. 1 goal is to win a Super Bowl with a finesse football team. That’s right, they want to climb the NFL mountain without hitting anyone in the face. Even if they succeed, wouldn’t we all be less American for their having done it?

7. The Los Angeles Lakers, NBA: Like the Yankees, the Lakers were much more hate-worthy in their heyday. You had Shaq committing uncalled offensive fouls every time he touched the ball, ridiculous late-game bounces and officiating, and Teamwork Enemy No. 1, Kobe Bryant. Plus they corrupted Phil Jackson, who went from “condescending jerk associated with MJ” to just a condescending jerk T.O. calls greedy.

Not only that, when it was time to dismantle their title-winning team, they chose the guy who gets questioned by the cops over the actual cop. Kind of weird from a community-relations standpoint if you ask me, which of course no one thought to do. Now they just have a lame roster like any of a number of NBA squads, but the residual “Man, I can’t stand these guys” keeps them on the list.

Plus I used to live with a guy who loved to point out that not only was Kobe better than Michael Jordan, he’s a great family guy, to boot! Yeah, that never got old.

6. The Duke Blue Devils, men’s college basketball: I am surprised to write in March that there are five teams I hate more than Duke, but there it is. Perhaps it’s because Coach K just got me armed for life with my new American Express card. (That’s a joke-I’d get rejected for a debit MasterCard.)

Things I hate about Duke:
-Overrated players celebrated for skills like foul trouble (Shelden Williams) and taking charges (Shane Batty, eh?)
-Silver-spoon fans who’ve somehow managed to become overrated themselves
-Coach Mike Krzyzewski, alternatively spelled Mike Shanahan-sans-fake-tan
-Hype, hype, hype

Things I like about Duke:
-Watching them all fall flat on their face in the NBA, except Elton Brand, who at least got out of there early

5. The Utah Jazz, NBA: Make no mistake, the Jazz have had plenty of obnoxious players over the years, none moreso than their dynamic duo, Karl Malone and John Stockton. And the team managed to surround them with equally spite-worthy role players like Greg Ostertag and Jeff “I Wipe My Sweat To Say Hi” Hornacek. Let’s not forget Jerry Sloan’s constant whining, which I hope has led to his justified absence from the list of Coach of the Year award winners.

Yet it’s the fans that propel the Jazz so high up on my scorn list. Have you ever met a Jazz fan and said to yourself, “Yep, that guy’s a decent human being” or “I may not agree with his choice in basketball teams, but he contributes something to society”? Of course not! Because Jazz fans exhibit none of these decent-person characteristics.

The most entertaining time to watch Jazz fans in action had to be when they broke through and made the Finals, only to be memorialized for posterity on countless commemorative Michael Jordan DVDs. What profound arguments the fans made at the time. Oh, the refs cost you the game, you say? Interesting. Dennis Rodman isn’t half the player Karl Malone is? It’s true, Rodman couldn’t guard Malone in the fourth quarter, but by then the Mailman had usually peeled out of the Delta Center parking lot on his motorcycle to escape the pressure. Great series, though! Maybe next year.

4. The Detroit Red Wings, NHL: Who doesn’t hate the Red Wings? Perennial Sportswriter of the Year Rick Reilly’s best line ever may have come near the end of this piece about the Red Wings (look for the Iraq joke).

What can I say about them now? Not much, considering I don’t follow hockey until the playoffs start, and maybe sometimes not even then. The Avs are definitely my favorite hockey team, don’t get me wrong, but I just can’t follow them with the same passion I give, say, the Broncos.

3. The New York Yankees, MLB: The highest-ranked team on this list with no rivalry tie to any of my personal favorites, the Yankees are one of sports’ finest villains. Have you ever tried arguing their huge payroll advantage with one of their fans? Yes, it’s totally a fair system, the other teams just must not want to win as badly. Never mind that a) the other teams don’t get to play in New York and that b) teams can’t exist in vacuum-where would the Yankees be without a league to play in?

Plus, like Duke, this team suffers from incredible hype. Take Derek Jeter. A hard-nosed player, embodies the qualities we all want young players to emulate, plays well under pressure, and is, by all accounts, a good citizen. But when he, A-Rod and Nomar were clearly the class of major-league shortstops, he couldn’t match up with the other two on power or defense. Yet if you only knew what you heard from announcers, you’d think Jeter was the next Ozzie Smith in the field. Isn’t overrating a player really just a way of saying that as good as he is, it isn’t really good enough?

2. The Nebraska Cornhuskers, college football: I graduated and currently collect checks from the University of Colorado, but I’ve never considered myself a particularly enthusiastic CU football fan. Nonetheless, I hate the ’Huskers.

What’s surprising is that no matter what the Cornhuskers do to make themselves worse-like retaining head coach Bill Callahan, a man so inept he didn’t even think to, you know, mix up his team’s plays when he faced the previous season’s coach in the Super Bowl-my reservoir of disgust never suffers from drought.

Plus, this team benefited from one of the greatest matchup mistakes of the BCS era (and that’s saying something) when it advanced to the 2002 Rose Bowl. This despite a 62-36 dismantling at the hands of Colorado, a game that remains one of my favorite moments as a sports fan. You can’t blame the fans for being emotionally invested in the team-after all, they do live in Nebraska, what else is there to believe in?-but could anything beat watching the looks on their faces as time ran out?

1. The Oakland Raiders, NFL: This team could forfeit entire seasons by starting, say, Kerry Collins at quarterback, and I’d still hate them the most.