But in 1998, I moved to New York and began to root for the Mets as well. It started off slowly. I always kind of liked the Mets. Maybe it was because they had a history of being the ugly second cousin to the Yankees. Maybe it was because the old Brooklyn Dodgers fans became Mets fans. Maybe it was because of Casey Stengel. Maybe it was because the first game I ever went to other than Baltimore's Memorial Stadium was Shea Stadium.
I'm not a frontrunner. In fact, I get bored when a team I'm rooting for is the best in the league. The 1997 Orioles regular season was too boring for me. There was no adversity. It was too easy. The 1991 Redskins team who dominated the league all season was not nearly as much fun to me as the 1987 team that wasn't all that great (if you take out the 3-0 record that the replacement squad put together) until the playoffs. I like the teams I root for to be in second place all year until making a big push at the very end.
So I'm not a frontrunner, but I am a person who enjoys having a home team to root for. I have taken grief from the peanut gallery about this for years but I see no reason why I can't be an Orioles fan and a Mets fan. I'll always be an Orioles fan but I also like being able to go to the games, watch them regularly on TV, and listen to sports radio that revolves around the home team. The Mets were an exciting bunch during my first four years in New York. They easily sucked me in. The Orioles had become a pathetic shell of themselves and Peter Angelos is an embarrassment.
In 1998, during interleague play, I rooted for the Orioles over the Mets. As soon as the Birds left town, I put my Mets hat (figuratively not literally, I still don't have a Mets cap) back on in enough time to passionately root them on against the Yankees during the next three games.
In 1999, I rooted for the Orioles again but I was conflicted. They were in the midst of another terrible season and the three games did not matter to them. But they did matter to the contending Mets.
By 2000, I had given up any pretense during these interleague games of rooting for Baltimore. Who cares if they won these games? They were destined to only win 70 games anyway so what did it matter? The Mets, on the other hand, really needed every victory they could get. I could live with myself for this transgression. I have two teams, one from my childhood and one that I have adopted. Since they aren't even in the same league, it was easy to root for both. And since the Birds were so abysmal, there really was no conflict. It was only three games each year played in the early part of the season! Now that the interleague schedule has changed, the two teams only play each other once every three years. I still believe that if the two teams played in the World Series, I would root for Baltimore. But I never will truly know until the first pitch of that first game to see which way my heart goes.
Which brings me to the Nationals. I love them! I love the excitement they generate among fans who didn't really ever have a team to root for. I love how excited they make my dad. I can't wait to go to RFK to see a real game with real field dimensions after seeing two exhibition games there in the early 90's during a failed attempt to lure a team to Washington.
As a kid, in between Hardy Boys books, I loved reading about the old Senators that moved to Minnesota. How could you not like Walter Johnson or Gabby Street who in 1908 caught a ball dropped from the top of the Washington Monument? Shirley Povich's columns always were a good reminder that, yes, the Nation's Capital once did have major league baseball. Washington: First in War, First in Peace, Last in the American League.
Even my mom who hates baseball would occasionally reminisce about going to games at old Griffith Stadium as a girl with her dad. I always loved looking at the ticket stub to the All Star game that my grandfather attended at D.C. Stadium (RFK before it was renamed) in 1962.
I always enjoyed listening to my dad talk about the second incarnation of the Senators and all the games he attended from the mid 60's- 1971: Big Frank Howard! Ted Williams bringing some respectability as the manager for a few years. Denny Mclain, former 31 game winner in Detroit, imploding in Washington.
Big Frank
The newspaper description of Frank Howard's monstrous RFK homerun - the seat has been freshly repainted.
My dad would tell me stories about going to games with only 700 fans in attendance. He was there at the last home game (only a few thousand fans bothered to show up) when Frank Howard's homerun gave Washington a late lead against the hated Yankees. The fans stormed the field in glorious agony and destroyed the field. The Senators had to forfeit the game. A perfect ending. My dad was heartbroken when the team left. He lamented about the time the Padres were on the verge of moving to Washington in the mid 70's. It took him eight years before he finally began to embrace the team 50 minutes to the north.
Even though I was raised an Orioles fan, I always loved listening to the stories. I prized my 1971 Topps Cards of a few of the Senators. My two favorites were Del Unser and Elliott Maddox.
So, yes, I am even more excited about the Nationals than I thought I would be. This surprises me. I didn't think I felt such a strong allegiance to the area. I have no desire to live there again. And I grew up an Orioles fan. Yes, I would have been a Senators fan if they had existed but that is besides the point. I am so conflicted. I find myself extremely happy each time the Nats win. After the team has been screwed for so many years in Montreal, they are the utlimate underdogs.
This isn't going to be easy for me. They play the Mets 19 times a year and they are in the same division! Starting next year, they will play the Orioles six games a year and I imagine that that will turn into quite a nice rivarly. It is an embarrassment of riches for me but I'm very worried here. How do I handle this?
This weekend, the Nats come to New York for the first time. Youthlarge and I are going to Sunday's game. Next Saturday, we will go to RFK to see the Mets play the Nats. I will be rooting for the Mets but I wonder how long that will last. Am I such a Washington kind of guy that even after not having a team to root for (a team that I would have rooted for if they had existed and let's remember I was not a Colts fan but a Redskins fan, back when I cared about the gridiron) for 32 years that eventually that love will supersede both my adopted team and the team of my childhood? I'm nervous and excited about where my fandom will lead me over the next few years.
In fact, the only other thing that makes me nervous about this whole Nats thing is that their hat reminds me a little too much of our current president.
Propose a nickname for the Nats here.
12 comments:
you are so silly sometimes. you root for your nats and i'll root for the mets. it'll make the games all the more fun. we can have bets with the winner having to do the dishes or clean the toilet.
Awesome. Count me in for the Nats too - I never really embraced the Mets for several reasons, not least of all the awful pretzels at Shea.
At RFK we also asked fans about the Nats hats - and whether or not they pledged their political allegiance by opting for the red or blue model (the scoreboard introduced the President as "George [Nats logo]. Bush." Most fans preferred to talk about Screech though.
"So, yes, I am even more excited about the Nationals than I thought I would be. This surprises me... I am so conflicted. I find myself extremely happy each time the Nats win."
As Bowles will testify, this is a manifestation of the sporting birth region + location of early nurture + first place attended school + inherited genetic cheering rhizome that we treasure so much (otherwise we would not be Norwich City supporters).
Embrace it; it is as unescapable as Darth Vader revealing himself to be ones father.
Last night my baseball world came tumbling down. Both the O's and the Nats lost on the same day for the first time this season. I am depressed.
Mitch--You haven't been able to embrace the Mets b/c of the pretzels at Shea, but now you're throwing your hat in (along w/ Dan and the rest of the Washington Elite/Beltway Insiders) w/ the Nats? Have you ever tasted the pretzels at RFK? Or the hot dogs.....or anything else there? I used to joke w/ my dad at the football games that the vendors sold the hot dogs for two bucks, or you could just buy the heartburn for fifty cents.
I'll be w/ Sujan at Shea. And anyhow, Mr. Met f-in' buys and sells Screech.
--Dave Nelson
i didn't say i was ditching the mets. calm down!
as far as rfk - it is the place that introduced me to the glories of malt vinegar on french fries.
as far as shea goes, they consistently have had the worst food of any ballpark i've been to. but this year's nathan's addition is a good one.
Except for the Carvel stand, Shea has the worst food in the majors hands down. I didn't try that much stuff at RFK last weekend but I can say that the lemonade was quite tasty and the chewy peanut butter cookies in the press box were outstanding.
I'll talk about baseball in a moment. I think I have to clarify something.
Weasel wrote
"As Bowles will testify, this is a manifestation of the sporting birth region + location of early nurture + first place attended school + inherited genetic cheering rhizome that we treasure so much (otherwise we would not be Norwich City supporters)".
I was delighted to read listo's thoughts on this. In the UK teams don't move, they don't change their names and unless you chase the shiny tourbus of success you generally follow your local team. Listo mentioned all of that in his entry. Weasel is absolutely correct about the ingredients for support, birthplace, upbringing etc, I sense it's much the same here. He had a more interesting route to City fandom being born in our rival town of Ipswich (imagine a red sock being born in the Bronx). His folks soon whisked him to safety and City fan he became. My journey to the Barclay was easier. Dad, Grandad, Great Uncles all supported City and my dad raised me within the church of my local team. having said all that, My Dad still ponders what might happen if his home town, The fishing port of Gorleston some 20 miles east of Norwich, were to meet City in a cup tie. Gorleston would be certain to lose (being a non league team that he actually played for in the 1960s) but he has suggested that he would give up his passionate allegiance of 58 years towards City and root for the underdogs headed towards glorious oblivion and a few moments in the eyes of the nation's sportpages.
Does that answer your question or have I just rambled on in the teary eyed, waxy manner of the perpetual underdog chasing the bloody ambulance of sporting disaster?
Baseball? Oh, Mets all the way. I have Listo to thank for that.
(Indulge us, Listo) Bowlesy, thats why its not just ":place of birth" in my formula. As you know, I may have been born in Ip**wich, but to a proper mawther with NCFC mad grandfather, uncles, & cousins: due to my father's unfortunate habit of getting based south of the border. I may have been born in hell, but my genes are 1/2 angel. Sincerely, if I could change it, I would. I've always felt like the Ugly Duckling, being born in Suffolk.
On the other hand, if my dad had been interested in football and I lived and was educated where he was from I'd have grown up a Leyton Orient fan.
Listo, do what makes you happy. If the Nats make you smile an infantile smile of unknowing joy as much as the Mets and Orioles do, add a third team to your "to cheer for" list.
Great result for Norwich City today. Go on Canaries....making a real fight of it.
dn
One of my high school PE teachers, Ron Stillwell, was a former Washington Senator. (His son Kurt also played for several MLB teams in the 80s/90s.)
i remember kurt stillwell!
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