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In advance of Tuesday鈥檚 Major League Baseball All-Star game, CU Boulder history professor Martin Babicz offers thoughts on why some fans remain loyal to baseball鈥檚 perennial losers

Every season, one Major League Baseball team earns champion success in the World Series while the rest place behind. And within that second group are a few teams that are the absolute stinkers of the league.

Think the Colorado Rockies in 2023, with just 59 wins versus 109 losses鈥攁nd with a record of not scoring better than fourth place in their division for five years in a row.

Why do some fans stay loyal to such losers?

Martin Babicz, a University of Colorado Boulder associate teaching professor of history, has some ideas. An instructor in the Department of History, the Stories and Societies RAP (Residential Academic Program), the Creative Minds RAP and the CMCI RAP, Babicz teaches a course called America Through Baseball, which examines American history since the Civil War, exploring how the social, cultural, economic and political forces shaping America were reflected in the national pastime. He鈥檚 also the co-author of the 2017 book .

Growing up in New England in the 1960s and 1970s, Babicz had plenty of chances to see Boston Red Sox and New York Mets fans lament their losing baseball teams on an almost-yearly basis. It鈥檚 given him insights on why fans stay loyal to losing teams, what factors can cause fans to lose faith in their teams and what he sees as the value of having a team to root for鈥攏o matter how bad they are, which he discussed with Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine.

Question: In sports, Americans generally love winning teams. Why do you think some people stay loyal to perennial losers?

Babicz: That鈥檚 a good question, and I鈥檝e thought about this on and off for years.

Baseball teams鈥攊n fact all sports teams鈥攁re local institutions. The Broncos, for instance, are a part of the fabric of Denver, just like the Rocky Mountains or Casa Bonita. But it is more than that. Sports teams are also family institutions. They are a part of our DNA, as support for the team is often passed along in a family from one generation to another. And just like a family won鈥檛 reject a child who is not as smart or as good looking as his siblings, it also won鈥檛 reject a sports team that is not as good as its competitors.

I think the Chicago Cubs and the Boston Red Sox might provide an illustration, as they both have very loyal fans. In 1998, both the Cubs and the Red Sox qualified for a wild-card playoff team. The wild card, which at the time was a relatively new thing in baseball, is a playoff berth awarded to a team that did not finish in first place.

Both the Red Sox and the Cubs had reputations for going on a very long losing streak of not winning the World Series, and there was some concern in baseball about what would happen if either of those teams ended up winning the World Series. Would the sport lose some of its luster among those fans? Would the teams lose some of their following?

Well, neither team won it in 1998, but the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004, and the Cubs won it in 2016鈥攁nd it didn鈥檛 damage the teams at all. Winning hasn鈥檛 hurt their popularity, so it鈥檚 not like you have to be a loser to be loved.

But if you look at the history of baseball, there have been baseball teams who did not do so well.

Think about the Washington Senators, the St. Louis Browns, or the Philadelphia Athletics. They went decades and decades with lousy teams and yet baseball remained popular in those cities. 鈥�

Question: It sounds like if a team has deep roots in a city, that can be a strong factor on whether fans will generally remain faithful?

Babicz: Yes, fans tend to remain faithful to teams that have deep roots in the community. Support for the team鈥攅ven a losing team鈥攂ecomes routine, almost ritualistic.

Take opening day, for instance. Some fans develop habits of skipping work or school and attending opening day every year, no matter how good or bad the local team is. And for many fans, tuning in the game on the radio is something they do whenever they are doing yardwork or work around the house, and they鈥檒l continue to tune in, even if the team is lousy. And, of course, when an opportunity presents itself to attend a game, they鈥檒l take it, even if they think their team won鈥檛 win.

And as I said, support for a sports team is often passed from parent to child. But if there wasn鈥檛 a team when your father and mother grew up, then there鈥檚 nothing to pass to you. 鈥�

If you look at football, Denver got a football team in 1960, and Miami got a football team in 1966. In those two markets, football had several decades to get established and to build a fan base before they were competing (for fans鈥� attention) against baseball teams. So, I wonder, had Denver gotten a baseball team in the early 1960s, would that team be as popular in the media as the Broncos are?

It really surprises me that almost every night it鈥檚 the Broncos who lead the sports news鈥攅ven when it鈥檚 not football season. And it鈥檚 not like that in some other markets; it鈥檚 certainly not like that back east. Football is popular there, but the other sports get their day as well.

Question: Which professional baseball team has the worst record? Were they able to eventually turn things around?

Babicz: The worst team ever was the 1899 Cleveland Spiders. They won 20 games all year, but that was in the 1890s. The National League had a monopoly on teams and there were 12 teams in total. After that season was over, the National League decided to cut back to eight teams鈥攁nd one of the four teams they eliminated was the Cleveland Spiders. So, they never had the opportunity to recover.

Question Are there any corollaries between winning and losing teams and the impact upon game attendance?

Babicz: Some interesting numbers can be seen with the New York Mets. New York City lost two teams in 1958, when the New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers moved to California. And so the Yankees were left to dominate New York baseball until the Mets were created in 1962.

The first thing that just amazes me, and it doesn鈥檛 make any sense, is that if you look at the attendance of the Yankees in 1957, they drew 1.5 million people. The following year, they drew 1.4 million. Why would the Yankee attendance go down in 1958, if they no longer have competition? And the Yankees won the World Series in 1958, so it鈥檚 not like they were no longer a good team.

So, that鈥檚 the first thing that surprises me. But the second thing that surprises me is what happened when the Mets came to New York in 1962. That first year, they were absolutely terrible, but they drew 922,000 fans. But in 1963, the Mets, who were still a bad team, drew over a million people鈥攁nd the attendance at Yankee stadium fell to 1.3 million, even though the Yankees were still pennant winners.

And in 1964, when the Mets were still a last-place team, they drew 1.7 million fans while the Yankees鈥攚ho won the American League pennant that year鈥攐nly drew 1.3 million fans. So, this last-place team is drawing 400,000 more fans than the American League pennant winners. And by 1969, when the Mets finally won the World Series, the Yankees drew just over a million fans, and the Mets drew 2 million fans.

I find those numbers interesting in that there鈥檚 something else going on in addition to not having competition or just being a winning team. 鈥� My thought is that baseball fans in New York, at least some of them, felt betrayed when they lost the Giants and Dodgers, and then they rallied to the Mets, even though they were bad for so many years.

Question: Is there any evidence to suggest fans will stop being loyal to their losing team at some point?

Babicz: Well, the example of that is in the San Francisco Bay area right now, where the Oakland Athletics are leaving Oakland after the end of the season. Last year, the Athletics were the only major league team to draw fewer than a million fans; I believe there were about 800,000 people who went to an A鈥檚 game last year.

Now, in the Bay area, they already have the Giants, so there is another team there. But there is also frustration by many Oakland fans, who blame the team owner for not trying in good faith to stay in Oakland. So, you have to consider how much that has to do with the decline of attendance.

The other city that we saw lose a lot of fans was in Montreal, and that can almost completely be traced to the 1994-95 baseball strike that canceled the World Series. The Expos had the best record in baseball at the time and a strong fan base.

Many fans really expected Montreal to make it to the World Series, and perhaps even win it, but it was all scratched when the strike took place and the World Series was canceled. A lot of Expos fans felt betrayed, and they did not return to the game the following season. After a few seasons, Expo fans were still no longer supporting their team.

Major League Baseball later transferred the Montreal Expos to Washington, D.C., where they became the Washington Nationals.

So, it wasn鈥檛 so much having a losing team as it was this sense of betrayal. And I think there鈥檚 some of that in Oakland as well. That may be a bigger factor on (fan loyalty) than having a winning or losing team.

Question: Some teams were losers for years鈥攅ven decades鈥攁nd then eventually turned things around. Does that mean Rockies fans should keep the faith, or is that asking too much?

Babicz: I鈥檝e thought about that since I moved here from the East Coast. So, the Rockies aren鈥檛 in the playoffs. I鈥檇 say, 鈥楤e excited that you have a baseball team and go to the games.鈥�

In the first 68 years of the 20th century, only one team in each league qualified for post-season play, and from 1969 to 1993, only two teams in each league qualified for post-season play. Baseball is about a lot more than just making the playoffs.

I think back to being a kid, remembering those Red Sox fans who would keep going to Fenway Park year after year even though the team hadn鈥檛 won the World Series since 1918. The other thing I think about is, although I grew up in southern New England, I was born in upstate New York, and one of the cities that competed with Denver to get a Major League Baseball team was Buffalo.

When MLB announced the Rockies and the Marlins as the expansion teams, Buffalo didn鈥檛 get a team. In fact, other than during the pandemic, when the Toronto Blue Jays played in Buffalo鈥攂ecause Canada wasn鈥檛 admitting people from the U.S. into Canada鈥擝uffalo hasn鈥檛 had a Major League Baseball team in over a hundred years. I鈥檓 sure fans in upstate New York would love to have a baseball team鈥攅ven if it was a losing team.

Now, you may think, 鈥楾he Rockies are a terrible team.鈥� True. But at least there鈥檚 a team. Those fans in Buffalo don鈥檛 even have a major league team to root for.

Just because your team doesn鈥檛 make the playoffs is no reason to give up turning out to support your team. With playoff berths, there鈥檚 always a chance 鈥� next year.

Top image: Rockies fans react to a play during a game between the Colorado Rockies and the Arizona Diamondbacks at Coors Field on Aug. 16, 2023.(Photo: Grace Smith/The Denver Post)

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