If you wondered whether your antipathy for The Best Fans in Baseball was created by your Cubs fandom, or if it was a feeling that transcended the rivalry, here’s at least one answer: yes, other sports fans find Cardinals fans annoying. Like, 10th most annoying in all of sports.
The basis for these rankings at Yardbarker appear to be little more than “what this dude thinks,” but it makes for a funny read nonetheless.
The 25 most annoying fan bases in sports gets kicked off by the Duke Blue Devils and New York Yankees, with which I don’t think too many folks will argue (maybe not even those fan bases – there’s a twisted kind of pride there). Up third? The Chicago Bears, which again, I do find us frequently annoying (even if the team, itself, causes far more annoyance lately). I don’t quite agree with the rationale, since you won’t find many Bears fans who actually believe in the team right now …
In any case, what I found more funny was the baseball team fan base showing up behind the Yankees, at number 10 overall:
St. Louis Cardinals
Cardinals fans didn’t invent baseball, but they’d like you to believe that is the case. There are few things in sports more infuriating than passive-aggressive friendliness from opposing fans, and Cardinals fans have that market cornered. I bet it’s easy to appreciate great performances from opposing players when your team is a perennial contender. The patronizing attitude from fans in the ballpark is bad enough, but Cardinals fans on Twitter? They’re a phenomenon unto themselves, and not in a good way. An astonishingly infuriating fan base.
Was that written by Cubs Twitter member? Because it reads like it was written by a Cubs Twitter member. Cardinals fans got quiet for a while as the team struggled (relative to their usual performance), but they’ve come back something fierce this offseason, and it’s unbelievably annoying.
… which is not to say that Cubs fans do not also bother some folks, since they are the next-next baseball team up (after the Red Sox), at number 19 overall:
Chicago Cubs
Everything that made Cubs fans fun when the team was a loser — the drinking, the lamentations about the team’s struggles, the leaning into the lovable loser status — disappeared instantly when they won the World Series. Immediately thereafter, they became even worse than Red Sox fans, an impressive feat. Cubs fans are spoiled, entitled and whiny and somehow managed to retain a put-upon vibe. Those are the nicest things I could say about them too. I blame Joe Maddon for at least some of it, so perhaps things will improve from here on out. But probably not.
I’m too close to it to say for sure, and while I know that we Cubs fans had a lot of fun in the afterglow of the World Series, I’m not so sure how annoying we are to other sports fans at this point. Not unlike the Bears, we kinda think the Cubs might not be any good, and so we’re as down on them as any Cardinals fan.
So, in baseball annoyance, it goes Yankees fans, Cardinals fans, Red Sox fans, Cubs fans? Does that sound right to you? I might’ve popped Astros fans up there a little higher – they show up fifth – because they’ve been particularly intolerable the last couple years. Brewers fans also really chap me, but I think that’s probably just particular to Cubs fans.
Who you got? Most annoying fan bases in sports?