People where I live are always somewhat surprised to learn that the Cleveland Indians are my favorite team in the sports universe. I was raised in a small Pennsylvania town roughly two and a half hours from Philadelphia; by all geographical logic, I should’ve grown up a Phillies fan.
As a kid, however, the concept of loyalty to a location was foreign to me. I didn’t know I was supposed to root for the teams who played in the closest proximity to where I lived. I based my rooting interests on how I felt watching teams play, and no team took a stronger hold on me than the Cleveland Indians of the mid-to-late 1990’s.