Oh dear. Page one.

Houston fans will bring up: "Arlington Rangers", some form of the word "dbag", and Rougned Odor being mean, and something about bandwagon fans

Ranger fans will bring up: their recent dominance over Houston, their two pennants over the Astros one, Jose Altuve's height, and the fact they play in Houston

In other words, this thread won't get you anywhere in your decision making process.

I thought all Spurs fans were automatically Ranger fans.

And this should be good.

Ag_07 said:

---

I thought all Spurs fans were automatically Ranger fans.

And this should be good.

---

I must've missed the memo

If you are going to start this year,

The Astros are about to begin at least a decade of never before seen dominance

That would be pretty cool to say you were a fan the whole time, rather than rooting for the Rangers for the first couple weeks of the season, then jumping to the Astros bandwagon

Overall history, the teams are pretty similar. The Astros won a pennant in 2005, and the Rangers in 2010 and 2011 I believe.

I'm personally an Astros fan, and don't see that changing. I grew up a big fan of both, going to several games every year in Arlington and one or two a year for the Astros. It was always awesome in Arlington (and probably Houston too, but I went to games with different people) because regardless how cheap the tickets we bought were, we were going to end up with front and center seats because no one was there. This is my biased and impressionable perspective, of course.

What turned me off to the Rangers was as soon as they saw some success all these fans showed up on social media that I'd never seen. All of a sudden they were propping themselves as Texas' team, similar to a university in Austin.

The fans of the Astros I've seen have been there through thick and thin, and there has been some quite thin this decade. Yet despite the terrible product, fans were still there in the top 1/3 of the MLB (corrected from mistakenly typing 1-3 instead).

Another thing that rubbed me wrong was they hype of A-Rod and how quickly they turned on him when things went south. The trade to Bronx and steroid suspicion came shortly thereafter.

The best Astros that I recall seeing playing, the Biggio, Bagwell, Berkman, Oswald, and the above average players like Shane Reynolds started their ML career in Houston and stuck around for most of it. I've never been a big fan of the pay a guy huge to be a mercenary (to which the Astros of the 2000s have done as well, of course, part of their late 2000s struggles), but generally I feel like the Astros have done a good job most of the time.

Bulldog73 said:

---

What turned me off to the Rangers was as soon as they saw some success all these fans showed up on social media that I'd never seen. All of a sudden they were propping themselves as Texas' team, similar to a university in Austin.

---

LOL.... this is the comeback for damn near every Astro fan out there. Try something original.

And if you are using social media as your barometer, you can find assclowns for every team out there, college or pro.

Is Root Sports on all cable/satellite providers in SA now? I would make sure that you can actually watch the Astros before deciding to become an Astros fan.

Heres an idea..

Root for both. At any point in the season if you find yourself enjoying one more than the other then make it a full time thing.

Each team has its own thing and both are good. You'll pick one by mid May and never look back.

And dont let trash talk and ribbing get in the way. Watching a team should be fun and you should feel real pride if you truly enjoy the team.

Also.......Odor has a rat face

would you be able to look in the mirror at yourself if you rooted for a guy like that

Quote:

---

What turned me off to the Rangers was as soon as they saw some success all these fans showed up on social media that I'd never seen. All of a sudden they were propping themselves as Texas' team, similar to a university in Austin.

The fans of the Astros I've seen have been there through thick and thin, and there has been some quite thin this decade. Yet despite the terrible product, fans were still there in the top 1-3 of the MLB.

---

Thinking the Astros attendance was still in the top 1-3 of the MLB even when bad and that the Rangers are mostly bandwagon fans is about a clear-cut case of completely ignoring data and reality as you can get.

Astros are bottom half of the league in attendance over the last decade.

Rangers, even during their horrible years, were drawing 2m+ per year.

And just for the record in case it helps the OP make a decision:


Over the last 100 years of Major League Baseball, no team has dominated the other like Texas has Houston.


Last 50 years, highest win% versus another team (min 100 games):

5) Atlanta Braves over Colorado Rockies (116-76) - 60.4%
4) Oakland Athletics over Tampa Bay Rays (101-62) - 61.6%
3) St. Louis Cardinals over Arizona Diamondbacks (82-51) - 61.7%
2) Cleveland Indians over Tampa Bay Rays (144-89) - 61.8%
1) Texas Rangers over Houston Astros (95-52) - 64.6%

Bulldog73 said:

---

I clearly did say 1-3, but I intended 1/3. Apologies. I'm editing to clarify, but I did hit the wrong button.

Last I checked I believe the past decade did have more Ranger fans/game easily, but that's the height of their success as a franchise where the Astros were largely in the doldrums (Kaz Matsui era... shudder).

My biases are compounded with the Mavs fans showing up similarly annoying out of no where, so it's probably not as bad as I recall. But the fans have turned me off to DFW sports more than anything else.

---

I won't argue with that, but I think it's probably pretty natural for other fanbases to look poorly upon fanbases that seem to quickly have success.

Attendance smack has long been discussed during the down eras for both teams -- Texas still draws decently when they are bad, Houston draws near dead last when they are bad. I've hypothesized it has much more to do with the bad Texas teams still being very "family friendly" (big name sluggers, lots of homeruns) than it does how good the actual fanbase is... but it'd be pretty difficult to make a case that Rangers fans are bandwagon and Astros fans aren't -- the attendance #'s actually show the opposite.

free_mhayden said:

---

Over the last 100 years of Major League Baseball, no team has dominated the other like Texas has Houston.


Last 50 years, highest win% versus another team (min 100 games):

5) Atlanta Braves over Colorado Rockies (116-76) - 60.4%
4) Oakland Athletics over Tampa Bay Rays (101-62) - 61.6%
3) St. Louis Cardinals over Arizona Diamondbacks (82-51) - 61.7%
2) Cleveland Indians over Tampa Bay Rays (144-89) - 61.8%
1) Texas Rangers over Houston Astros (95-52) - 64.6%

---

Did you hang the banner yet?

Astros have air conditioning.

DVC2010 said:

---

Astros have air conditioning.

---

The Rangers will too once they build the exact same stadium.

DVC2010 said:

---

Astros have air conditioning.

---

EOT

Mr.Bond said:

---

free_mhayden said:

---

Over the last 100 years of Major League Baseball, no team has dominated the other like Texas has Houston.


Last 50 years, highest win% versus another team (min 100 games):

5) Atlanta Braves over Colorado Rockies (116-76) - 60.4%
4) Oakland Athletics over Tampa Bay Rays (101-62) - 61.6%
3) St. Louis Cardinals over Arizona Diamondbacks (82-51) - 61.7%
2) Cleveland Indians over Tampa Bay Rays (144-89) - 61.8%
1) Texas Rangers over Houston Astros (95-52) - 64.6%

---

Did you hang the banner yet?

---

Well, it's an ongoing thing... So even though Texas is 43 games up and couldn't conceivably fall below 0.500 in head-to-head until sometime around the Year 2030, I doubt they'd want to make a banner they might conceivably have to stop displaying in some embarrassing fashion...

Do you identify with dbags and pretentious a-holes? Then be a Rangers fan.

If you're from San Antonio, you probably identify more with a city that has character and more down to earth people. Meet Astros fans.

Quote:

---

What turned me off to the Rangers was as soon as they saw some success all these fans showed up on social media that I'd never seen. All of a sudden they were propping themselves as Texas' team, similar to a university in Austin.

---

I'm sure Houston fans would've been very civil on social media during their successful years. However, we'll never know because the last success they tasted was 10+ years ago before social media was a big thing.

AllThings12thMan said:

---

Quote:

---

What turned me off to the Rangers was as soon as they saw some success all these fans showed up on social media that I'd never seen. All of a sudden they were propping themselves as Texas' team, similar to a university in Austin.

---

I'm sure Houston fans would've been very civil on social media during their successful years. However, we'll never know because the last success they tasted was 10+ before social media was a big thing.

---

Heck, see how they were in 2015 when they stormed out the gates strong and the Rangers stumbled, or this past year when they came into the season as a trendy WS pick. Of course, it's much easier to deal with when the Rangers ended up winning the division both of those seasons.

Same number of playoff wins each year

I may be biased but I think the stros are winning this thread