A snob, by definition, is someone who exhibits a haughty attitude. Haughty means arrogantly proud or supercilious. That’s right “supercilious.” Look it up. I’m not giving vocabulary lessons. I will admit to being “haughty” when it comes to my Bay Area professional sports teams. I could make an argument that we live in one of the greatest professional sports regions known to man. Not since the gladiators were getting eaten by lions in the Coliseum (Rome not Oakland) has one area dominated the national sports section of the periodicals like our Giants and A’s, 49ers and Raiders, Sharks and Earthquakes. Whatever became of the San Jose Stealth lacrosse team?
From football to baseball, basketball to hockey, we can even boast a professional soccer team. The Bay Area is cleats and helmets above the rest of the country in professional sports franchises and I’m proud to share my history with each one as a lifelong Bay Area native.
San Jose Sharks:
I attended my first Sharks game, my first hockey game to be precise, during their inaugural season in 1991 at the Cow Palace in Daly City. Nothing screams hockey louder than a 4H exhibition hall, but during those first two Sharks seasons 
it served as home ice for the Bay Area’s new NHL hockey franchise. The early stars included Pat Fallon (the Sharks first draft choice), Doug Wilson (the team’s current General Manager) and Artus Irbe. Although the South Bay’s only professional franchise has yet to bring home a world championship (Stanley Cup) it has graced our regions with a wealth of playoff appearances thanks to stars such as Owen Nolan, Patrick Marleau and Jeremy Roenick. Today, we place our faith in the likes of Joe Thornton, Joe Pavelski and Logan Couture. I still don’t understand all the rules of the game, but the Sharks are a wildly fun, entertaining and competitive team to root for and residents of the Shark Tank believe they can ultimately hoist the cup.
San Jose Earthquakes:
I’ll be honest, I’ve never attended an Earthquakes game, but once their new stadium near Norm Mineta San Jose International Airport is completed I may just have to check it out. The team was founded in 1974 as part of the North American Soccer League, but I vaguely recall the George Best days when almost no one, includi
ng myself, took notice of soccer in the Bay Area. The team folded in 1989 and reemerged in 1991, as the San Francisco Bay Blackhawks playing in the WSL/USISL and the APSL with such big names stars as Eric Wynalda and our very own John Doyle, however, due in large part to lack of fan attendance, the team folded again in 1993. The team came back together in 1996 as the San Jose Clash and officially changed their name back to the Earthquake in 1999 with Landon Donovan being their biggest star attraction. Today, with the team boasting Tri Valley native (and former Mustang Soccer star) Chris Wondolowski on the roster, the team should experience continued success while building on the World Cup popularity of soccer.
San Francisco Forty-Niners:
The team was founded in 1946 and joined the NFL in 1949. Because my dad was a fan, I’m pretty sure I was a 49ers fan 
even before I was born. An in-vitro, diehard, bleed red (my blood is actually red), Niner fanatic. My earliest gridiron memories are seeing the team play at Candlestick Park in the early 1970s with John Brodie, Gene Washington, Cedric Hardman and Dave Wilcox being largely responsible for my life long obsession with football. However, after the 10-3 season of 1970, I suffered through a lot of really bad teams, bad coaches and bad players (does Steve DeBerg ring a bell?) before we were rewarded with the glory days of the 1980s and 90s. When Joe and Jerry, Brent and Ronnie, Roger, Charles, Dana, Harris, Bryant, Eric, Steve, Guy, Keena, Dwight and JT arrived to lift the deserving fan base to a religious glory every Sunday. One Super Bowl would have been a Godsend, but we won five glorious Lombardi Trophies (1981, ’84, ’88, ’89 and ’94) during a run of sixteen seasons with at least ten wins. Flash forward 20 years, after some ups and downs, the team now has a brand spanking new state-of-the-art stadium in Santa Clara, a proven coach in Jim Harbaugh and an incredibly popular team of hard working (Colin Kaepernick, Michael Crabtree, Vernon Davis, Joe Staley and Frank Gore) and hard hitting (Patrick Willis, Navorro Bowman and Justin Smith) players committed to achieving the ultimate goal. The future is bright if the Yorks can keep it all together and the franchise has 1.3 billion reasons to keep it all together.
Oakland Raiders:
The Raiders were founded in Oakland in 1960, but didn’t join the NFL until 1970 when the league merged with the AFL. 
I’ve only been to one Raider game in my lifetime and that was one game too many. Growing up, my two favorite teams were the Forty-niners and anyone playing the Raiders. I think the term is “Raider Hater.” I never denied the Raiders success (Super Bowl victories in 1976, 1980 and 1983), but I never bought into the whole Al Davis “Commitment to Excellence,” when there were years when the team and players weren’t really committed to Excellence. Ok, maybe there was a small (regional) snob part of me that took pride in the Raider’s good fortunes, mostly because I’ve always been a fan of certain players including; Kenny “The Snake” Stabler, Howie Long, Dave Casper, Tim Brown, Jim Plunkett, Marcus Allen, Rich Gannon and Steve Wisniewski. The move to Los Angeles (1982-1994) was unforgivable, even if they did come back. If I were to show a slight glimpse of compassion or hope for the team it would only so my friends who are Raider’s fans can hold their head up high once again.
Golden State Warriors:
The Warriors moved to San Francisco from Philadelphia in 1962. They changed their name to Golden State in 1971 and 
moved to Oakland in ’72. I wasn’t a big basketball fan until the Warriors won their one and only NBA Championship concluding the ’74-75 season. With a line-up that included Rick Berry, Clifford Ray, Jaamal Wilkes and Phil Smith, the Dubs (Ws) shocked the NBA when they beat the Washington Bullets 4-0. My first Warriors game was in the Fall of 1976. By then the team had begun their downward decent. Through no lack of effort from key players such as Sleepy Floyd, Joe Barry Carroll, Pervis Short and Bernard King, the team didn’t become relevant again until the emergence of Run TMC (Tim Hardaway, Mitch Richmond and Chris Mullen) during the mid-1990s. Again, the team went through another horrendous dry spell, while fans rooted for the likes of talented, yet not real likeable, players such as Latrell Spreewell, Chris Weber, Stephen Jackson, Byron Davis and Monte Ellis. Thanks to the new ownership group of Joe Luber and Peter Gruber and a planned new home in San Francisco, the Warriors have placed the future of the franchise in the hands of superstar Stephen Curry and his supporting cast which includes Klay Thompson, David Lee, Andre Iguodala and Andrew Bogut. All I can say is, I believe!
Oakland A’s:
While the A’s originated in Philadelphia, the team moved to Oakland from Kansas City in 1968. My earliest memory of 
the A’s was watching afternoon World Series games on an old black & white TV set in my elementary school classrooms while they ran the table winning three consecutive titles in 1972, ’73 and ’74 with a charismatic line-up that included Reggie Jackson, Vida Blue, Rollie Fingers, Catfish Hunter, Campy Campaneris and Captain, Sal Bando. While my heart belonged to the Giants, I did learn to appreciate the Swinging A’s for their speed, power and pitching, whether it was Billy Ball or Money Ball. What’s more amazing is those Amazing A’s stacked the deck again in the late 1980s with the bash brothers – Mark McGuire and Jose Conseco, Ricky Henderson, Dave Stewart and Dennis Eckersly. This time they won three consecutive American League Championships in 1988, ’89 and ‘90, but captured only one World Series – when they beat the Giants in 1989. Sadly, the most notable event of that series was the Loma Prieta earthquake. Today, a group of green and gold overachievers have won two consecutive American League West pennants thanks to Jake Donaldson, Brandon Moss, Coco Crisp and Scott Kasmir. The Giants will always be “my team,” but I like to think of the A’s as their adorable little brother who I can root for to win best team in their league.
San Francisco Giants:
The Giants moved New York to San Francisco for the start of 1958 season with a talented young outfielder named Willie 
Mays. They added a rookie infielder named Orlando Cepeda and in 1959 brought up another rookie, 1st baseman Willie McCovey. I attended my first Giants game in 1966 at the ripe old age of four and I’ve been hooked ever since. As up and down (mostly down) as the Giants were for so many years, with players such as Gaylord Perry, Juan Marichal, Bobby Bonds, Chris Spier, John Montefusco, Atlee Hammacker, Will Clark, Jack Clark, Candy Maldenado, Jeffrey Leonard, Dave Draveky, Mike Krukow, Duane Kiper, Jeff Kent, Chile Davis, Darrel Evens, Matt Williams, Robbie Thompson, and a relatively productive homerun hitter named Barry Bonds, my prayers were finally answered when the team won their first World Series title in 2010 and then miraculously did it again in 2012. I’m secure enough in my masculinity to admit I shed actual tears when I attended the Giants World Series parade following their World Championship victories. I can only hope that with a nucleolus of charismatic players including Posey, Pence, Pegan, the Panda, the Freak, the baby giraffe, Mad Bomb, Crawford, Hutty and Romo, I’ll have another chance to cry like a little girl after another World Series.
Name me another geographic area in the 50 United States that can boast such a preeminent line-up of successful sports teams. You can’t. Oh sure, there’s Chicago (Bulls, Bears, White Sox, Cubs, Blackhawks and Fire) or Philadelphia (76ers, Eagles, Phillies, Flyers and Union), but those areas have crappy weather that can make it difficult to get to the games so we win by default. Even when I attended college in Southern California, it was loyalty over location. I could never ever root for the Rams, Dodgers, Lakers, Clippers, Angels, Ducks or LA Raiders even if I did live amongst their people. Appreciate what we have—the teams, the players and the venues—because it’s as good as it gets anywhere.
This article is dedicated to Paul Hirsch. Paul was a great guy, a talented writer and a respected colleague. I was always a big fan of his sports-related articles. Paul’s contributions to the magazine will be missed as will his presence in community.
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