I think that's the key. For me, I fell in love with the game back in the 80's. AL only played the NL in the AS Game and WS. I could love the Sox, but follow NL teams since it wasn't likely the Sox would ever match up against them. I liked following NL players like Eric Davis, Ozzie, Gwynn and Raines. I was psyched when the Nasty Boys beat the hated A's in 1990. The brand of baseball was more "put the ball in play to manufacture runs." Aside from 1987, the long ball was still under 1 per game (24 of the past 28 seasons have been above 1 per game, it had never been that high prior to 1987).