Textbook prices aside, I like the University Book Store. I can wander in after I’m done with lunch and look at the newest books, browsing in peace and quiet.

On one of these post-food court visits, I found Doris Kearns Goodwin’s latest book, titled “Wait ‘Til Next Year!” She is a well known historian, and this book is about growing up in New York as a Brooklyn Dodgers fan. She had neighbors who rooted for the New York Giants (this is, if you remember, prior to their moves to the West Coast), and a few who were Yankees fans.

Now, in one sense, the Dodgers were not a Cub-like franchise. They were constantly in contention, always making the playoffs or runs at the playoffs. They even made the World Series with a fair degree of regularity, but they would never, ever win — more like the Red Sox than the Cubbies.

The Dodgers’ history of futility was even more frustrating, since they would always lose out to one of their traditional rivals, either losing the pennant to the Giants or the Series to the Yankees.

Goodwin described being introduced to the history of the Dodgers by her father, who also taught her how to score the games, as a fast-dying art. She was told of the famous dropped third strike: Mickey Owen, the normally reliable Dodger catcher, dropping a potentially game-ending third strike against the Yankees in the World Series, costing the Dodgers the game — and many Dodgers fans believed — the Series.

Later, she described the pain that went along with Bobby Thompson’s shot heard ’round the world — the ninth-inning home run that won the pennant for the Giants. I bet Red Sox fans felt the same way when Buckner let Mookie Wilson’s grounder go through his legs, and I know I felt very similarly when Brant Brown dropped the fly ball against the Brewers.

Now, when these things were happening to the Dodgers, there weren’t many people rooting for them except their die-hard fans like Goodwin. Nobody else would root for them, since it produced to much stress and heartache. They would root for the Giants or the Yankees, the easy pick, the pick you knew would eventually win.

Eventually, however, good triumphed over evil, or at least that’s the way Goodwin saw it, and the Dodgers beat the Yankees in the series, stunning all the bandwagon Yankees fans, and allowing her, as a person who wore her blue Dodger heart on her sleeve, to strut proudly amongst those who shamefacedly tried to hide their bandwagon Yankee alliance.

It’s like all those Packer “fans” who rushed out as quickly as possible and exchanged their two-week-old NFC champion Packer gear for Super Bowl Champion Bronco’s gear.

And could a mention of bandwagons go by without the sudden re-appearance of 1996 Yankee World Series shirts and hats? All those things which had, pardon the expression, gone back into the closet after Knoblach’s error in Game 2 and Thome’s two home run game in Game 3 of the ALCS.

All the people who had jumped on the Yankee bandwagon after its record-breaking 114-win season started talking about how they always rooted for the underdog. Then, after the Yanks came back, won the series and then jumped on the Padres 3-0, all those underdog fans started talking gibberish about how, after the season the Bronx Bombers had, it would be “unfair” if they didn’t win the World Series. What a crock!

Bandwagon fans aren’t merely annoying. They drive clothing prices up by creating a demand for way more team clothing than there would be if people actually stayed with one team. They increase the supply of hot air. And last, but not least, they are very, very annoying.

There is one good thing about bandwagons. They create a vibrant group of anti-bandwagon team haters. For the Yankees, the ultimate bandwagon team in history, there is a vibrant anti-Yankee societal niche.

For the Bulls, the bandwagon team of the ’90s in the NBA, a hate industry is developing, fostered by the fact they are about to fall on hard times. And of course, there is the anti-Cowboy faction, of which I am an active member. Doesn’t the world of football seem a little sweeter when the Dallas Cowboys lose, especially to a sorry team like the Chicago Bears or Oakland Raiders?

Well, like the Dodgers, the Cubs, the Red Sox and all the other long-suffering franchises out there, I’m striving to be the best I can. If I fell short, all I can say is: “Wait ’til next week.”

Jayadev Athreya is a junior in mathematics from Ames.