I’ve been thinking a lot recently about sports fandom. I come from a family of die-hard fans of Cleveland sports teams. When my father was born, they put a football in his hand, and since that time he has loved the Browns. It doesn’t matter to him that the Browns of today aren’t the Browns here grew up with, that the team was moved to Baltimore and then re-created. He will root for them against all others and against all odds. My mother is similarly obsessed with the Indians. She grew up going to Indians games, often with free tickets for getting straight As (note to other teams: letting kids go to games for free is a terrific way to build a paying fan base in later years…) Now Mom watches or listens to almost every Indians’ game every season, and she knows the history and stats of the team as well as any announcer. With the exception of Northwestern teams, I don’t have this single-minded devotion to any sports franchises. There are teams I love, to be sure, but that love is often an ephemeral thing. Do I obsess over the Indianapolis Colts? Sure, but only because I love watching Payton Manning play and especially love watching him break records. Will I care about the Colts in a few years when the next big quarterback is shattering these new records? Nope. Did I find a way to sneak a radio to the coffee shop to listen to Cubbies’ playoffs games while at work two years ago? Yes, but only because I was extraordinarily bored with my life in Santa Barbara and desperate for anything that reminded me of Chicago. Do I follow them now that I live a mile from Wrigley? Nope.

At times I’ve thought of myself as the very worst of the fair-weather fans, rooting for the Indians when they finally got to the World Series or for Lance Armstrong when he attempted his sixth (and easiest) win of the Tour de France. Is that it? Do I only care about winners?

While it would be easy to buy into that theory and write myself off as a bad fan, I don’t think that’s the underlying reason for all my allegiance-swapping. After all, Northwestern football has let me down time and time again, but you don’t see me cheering for USC. Rather, I think I just need a hook to become interested in a team. I didn’t root for the Indians growing up in Northeastern Ohio because no one (except my mom) rooted for them then. They may have played a mere 60 miles from my house, but it was nearly impossible to follow them when no one cared. Indians’ “highlights” rarely made the news and sports announcers found any other sport to talk about. Once they started winning, it was easy to follow the team, since all of northeastern Ohio went a little Tribe-crazy.

That’s not to say that I’m a lazy fan. In fact, I tend to be quite obsessive, constantly checking stats and rankings. It’s just that I like to be sharing my obsession with others, even if I’m doing so passively by listening or reading, rather than speaking or writing. It’s easier to connect to a team when others are doing the same. I followed every nuance of the Cubs’ playoff in 2003 because I was listening to Chicago sports talk radio every day at work. I followed every nuance of the Indians’ playoff in 1997 because I had a boyfriend who was doing the same.

Now that I’m tracking every move of the White Sox, it’s easy to think of myself as a traitor (even though I was a White Sox fan, then Indians fan, then Cubs fan) or a bad fan. But the truth is that fandom is simply more fun when it’s shared. I’m quite certain that if I lived in Ohio right now I would be a diehard Indians fan. But I live and work in Chicago, and frankly I feel much more connected to Chicago than I do to Cleveland, despite the family connections.

And so I root for the White Sox today as they battle the Indians. Next week in Cleveland may be a different story.