I follow the Minnesota Twins. Let’s start this post out with that fact. I’m not bragging or anything, I respect any person’s allegiance to any team. But, this story casually includes that fact a few times and it needs to be known up front.

I feel a certain allegiance to the Twins, to the point where it’s blasphemous for me to wear a White Sox jersey. For the record, as much as I respect the White Sox I do not like them and I hope they end up at 3rd place behind the Detroit Tigers by the time that the 2008 MLB season arrives at completion.

Now… I have recently begun to like wearing mlb jerseys just ’cause it’s better than t-shirts. Ebay is amazing, as far as finding cheap jerseys goes, so I’m on a roll.

But… there is always the issues of buying or wearing a jersey which conflicts with my support of the Minnesota Twins.

So.

How should this be handled?

I present these rules, which should be followed by sports fans who are allegiant to their teams, yet like to wear league gear in general. This could apply to MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL or whatever.

The Rules For Wearing “Other Teams” Jerseys

1. Wear a generic team jersey, a jersey with no player number or name. This will make it appear as though you don’t have a favorite player, and you’ll have no logo or recognizable information on the back of the jersey.
2. Wear the jersey of the player that plays the worst against your favorite team. In my case, I would want to wear the jersey of a White Sox player who always gets schooled when playing the Minnesota Twins.
3. Degrade the opposing teams jersey in some manner. In my case, I’m going to have a graphic designer that I work with design the word “Sucks” using the same lettering and look of the White Sox logo. I will then take this logo and have it embroidered underneath the Sox logo that is on the front of a White Sox jersey that I bought off of Ebay for $12.80.
4. Wear the jersey of a player who has played in the past and has no general effect on the team and players that you actively have followed in your lifetime. For example, I was born in 1979, so I figure that I can get by with wearing any team gear from any MLB baseball team or player from before the year 1979 without having a fan conflict situation.

Yeah.

If you have some more ideas for rules, feel free to post a comment to this rant.