Chicks Blog The Nats

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If you're interested in reading the thoughts of female baseball fans that love the Nationals, then I have the blog for you:

http://wevegotheart.com/

One of the writers is my friend Jenn who you know as dcbatgirl from my Mets @ Nats KTE's.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

The writing's snappy and personal. I kinda like it-- from an outsider view, lost causes generally make for the best blogging. But this was a little unsettling...

Carolyn was born and raised in Morris County, NJ as a Mets fan, but left to attend college at The George Washington University to study Marketing and Business Administration. After college, Carolyn moved to Chicago where she attempted to juggle lazy days at Wrigley Field with a busy career as a Warehouse Management Consultant. She moved back to the Washington, DC area in 2005. Carolyn now lives in Arlington, VA and is thrilled to be a 100% Washington Nationals fan forever!

What the hell kind of sports bigamy is this? If you want to change your name-- in this burg-- you've got to present a compelling reason to a civil judge... and this flip-floppery within the division* is allowed, willy-nilly?

*I have friends who defected from the Orioles after two decades of Angelos-- a significant number because they had kids coming or just over the horizon, and didn't want to subject them to the same indignities they've suffered since the Cal-and-Eddie show. I know a couple of VERY casual fans of other teams who've gravitated toward the Nats as other Washington transplants do (a la Redskin loyalty-development). But holy hell...

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Yeah, I hate to make sweeping generalizations based on blog bios, but this Carolyn is an awful person and obviously doomed to be transfered to the Bronx.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I don't understand switching loyalties as an adult. Rooting interest is, to me, a holdover from childhood, not something I'd get started on as a somewhat rational adult. I have a friend who moved from Long Island to Florida after college. For a while he rooted for the Mets from afar (thanks to Channel 9) but when the Marlins came along he jumped aboard. He recently asked me why I never became a Phillies fan. Even though I've lived in the Philly area for over 20 years now, I still see them as just another out-of-town team. My sister, however, married a Phillies fan and she now roots for guys like Cole Hamels and Jimmy Rollins and other non-entities.

I don't get it.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

I could be a Kristen fan though

[metirish]

Carolyn & the Nats are now BFF...OMFG....AYFKM...IDTBK in the pic above me LOLS

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: I don't understand switching loyalties as an adult. Rooting interest is, to me, a holdover from childhood, not something I'd get started on as a somewhat rational adult. I have a friend who moved from Long Island to Florida after college. For a while he rooted for the Mets from afar (thanks to Channel 9) but when the Marlins came along he jumped aboard. He recently asked me why I never became a Phillies fan. Even though I've lived in the Philly area for over 20 years now, I still see them as just another out-of-town team. My sister, however, married a Phillies fan and she now roots for guys like Cole Hamels and Jimmy Rollins and other non-entities. I don't get it.

Ah, the I-married-a-vegetarian-so-I'm-vegetarian-too-- a particularly insidious brand of loyalty-sluttery. (Yeah, that's right-- I called yer sister a slut.)

To me, the loyalty's half of the point of adopting a team. Switching because you move just seems plain weird to me, like moving to Seattle and adopting your Tacoma cousin as your new brother, because he lives closer than your old one, and you get to hang out at his house more often. The only way it makes sense to me is if you didn't love the old team, really, in the first place.

Edited April 6, 2010 by Guest

[Gwreck]

I've always believed that a person is entitled to change sports loyalties only under the following circumstances:

1. Your team moves, in which case you can choose any new team, or disown the sport entirely if you want;

2. You or immediate family member plays for or is manager/general manager/owner of a team other than the one you root for, in which case you can root for the team you or they are affiliated with;

3. You move to a different city and adopt the local team as your own. This is a once-lifetime, irreversible allowance.

[Ceetar]

Gwreck wrote: I've always believed that a person is entitled to change sports loyalties only under the following circumstances: 1. Your team moves, in which case you can choose any new team, or disown the sport entirely if you want; 2. You or immediate family member plays for or is manager/general manager/owner of a team other than the one you root for, in which case you can root for the team you or they are affiliated with; 3. You move to a different city and adopt the local team as your own. This is a once-lifetime, irreversible allowance.

3 is still sketchy. Maybe if it's your first move as an 'adult', and a different league. Like moving to Anaheim and becoming an Angels fan. There is no competing rooting interest and gradually the Angels will become more relevant in your life.

Even if my team moved, I don't think I'd stop rooting for them given the options these days. I just couldn't not root for Wright and Reyes for example.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I'm not on board with 3 either, unless you're 20 or younger I suppose.

If the Mets ever relocated, I'd be done as a baseball fan. I'd probably pay a little attention to them the first couple of years, but less and less each passing year. I image that some Dodgers fans, for example, continued to follow the team in LA while they still had familiar faces like Reese and Snider and Hodges but cared a lot less, if at all, about guys like Maury Wills, who came along later.

[G-Fafif]

All must make their own decisions, he says as nonjudgmentally as possible, but if you can switch without agonizing over the choice, then you weren't more than a "hey, I kind of like them" or "when I was a kid, I liked them but I stopped paying attention" lapsed fan at best.

[G-Fafif]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: I'm not on board with 3 either, unless you're 20 or younger I suppose. If the Mets ever relocated, I'd be done as a baseball fan. I'd probably pay a little attention to them the first couple of years, but less and less each passing year. I image that some Dodgers fans, for example, continued to follow the team in LA while they still had familiar faces like Reese and Snider and Hodges but cared a lot less, if at all, about guys like Maury Wills, who came along later.

There were and are Dodger fans who stayed Dodger fans as well as (I can assure you from personal interaction) Giants fans who stayed Giants fans from 3,000 miles away. I know second-generation San Francisco Giants fans who've lived in the New York area all their lives. Their fathers stuck with the Giants after they headed west and it remained the family business.

Keeping the team name probably helps in that regard. If the New York Giants had become the San Francisco Seagulls, I doubt the connection would have stayed as strong.

[Benjamin Grimm]

G-Fafif wrote: Keeping the team name probably helps in that regard. If the New York Giants had become the San Francisco Seagulls, I doubt the connection would have stayed as strong.

I think that's probably true. The Giants and Dodgers do "feel" like their history stretches back to New York, much more so than the Orioles connection to their St. Louis days, which is almost never acknowledged.

[Fman99]

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: I could be a Kristen fan though

Boyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyng

Go Nationals fans who are hot chicks !

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: I think that's probably true. The Giants and Dodgers do "feel" like their history stretches back to New York, much more so than the Orioles connection to their St. Louis days, which is almost never acknowledged.

Or the MFYs' connection to Bawlmer?

[G-Fafif]

Anybody can root from anywhere for anybody with relative ease these days, but I'm trying to picture some diehard North Philadelphian staying up late to watch his beloved Athletics, name and all -- even these guys, particularly considering there was a previous detour to Kansas City.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

G-Fafif wrote: Anybody can root from anywhere for anybody with relative ease these days, but I'm trying to picture some diehard North Philadelphian staying up late to watch his beloved Athletics, name and all -- even these guys, particularly considering there was a previous detour to Kansas City.

Costumes help actors get into character; I'd imagine it does the same for fanboys. I'd imagine it only helps that they live a train/bus ride from Mitchell-and-Ness HQ.

Still, yeah, takes a lot of brain-squinting to see that in my mind's eye.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I took my kids to that Philadelphia Athletics museum last year. It's not much, but it was a short drive. They seemed to get a minor kick out of it. If they liked that, they should really like the museum at Citi Field when we get there.

I got the impression from chatting with the guys at the store/museum that they're pretty much Phillies fans now. Their allegiance stayed in Philadelphia; it didn't go to Kansas City and Oakland.

I've often felt (when I think about it) that the wrong team left Philadelphia. The Athletics had a much richer history. They just happened to be in a down cycle at the time that the big rush of franchise relocations happened.

[Guest sharpie]

After moving to San Francisco as a 14-year-old I stopped following baseball for a few years. Then, due to a Giants-lovin' roommate I adopted them as kind of a co-team. Once I moved back to New York, however, I dropped them immediately although I still root for them to win the NL West and was for them in the World Series vs. the Angels.

Had a hard time in those years going to Giants-Mets games as the pull of the orange-and-blue would overtake the pull of the orange-and-black.

[Guest Edgy DC]

I had a friend who acknowledged she grew up a Mets fan, but living in Washington, she found her kids gravitating toward the Nats, and so jumped ship to root with them. Until the Nats acquired Elijah Dukes, and she couldn't find a rationalization to root that worked for her as a mother, so she took her family and checked them all back into Metland. I don't know if she's maintained that since his release in March. Hope so.

[bmfc1]

Carolyn and Jenn are trying to register but are having some trouble. Perhaps our "sys ops" can contact them. I think that you can get them via their blog.

Meanwhile, Carolyn would have posted this:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rooting for the Mets was a choice assigned to me as a child. Rooting for the Cubs was a way of fitting in to a new city - one that didn't particularly like people from the East Coast - but never made me belong. But rooting for the Nationals...that's the only time the choice felt like my own, and felt right.

:-)

[Benjamin Grimm]

What, Kristen doesn't want to join us?

[bmfc1]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: What, Kristen doesn't want to join us?

I hope JCL didn't scare her off.

[dinosaur jesus]

I think one reason I've been able to stay a Mets fan is that I've never lived anywhere near New York. In most places I've been, I've ended up despising the local team, whether it's the Pirates, the Cardinals, or the Blue Jays. Somehow being around the fans makes me not want to be one. (Though I'm not sure the Jays actually have any fans--all those people who used to fill Skydome in the early nineties were really just there to gawk at the roof.) Mets fans are a higher class of people, of course, so maybe it would be different with them.

[Benjamin Grimm]

My daughter, growing up a Mets fan in Phillies territory, remarked last year at Citi Field how great it was to be surrounded by "her own kind." It's actually become a novelty to me as well after all these years, and it is nice.

I understand the concept of having disdain for the local teams. I wouldn't have thought I'd care one way or the other about the Philadelphia Eagles, but I always find myself rooting for them to have an early playoff exit (or to miss the playoffs entirely) so that the fans would shut up. The whole fandom thing seems awfully silly when you're on the outside looking in.

[DocTee]

Living 3000 miles from Shea has only added to my love for the team. And in a town of 30,000 there are a half-dozen NYC area transplants (including my NEXT DOOR neighbor) who are as die-hard in their allegiance as we...and I have yet to encounter a MFY fan!

[Guest themetfairy]

G-Fafif wrote: Anybody can root from anywhere for anybody with relative ease these days, but I'm trying to picture some diehard North Philadelphian staying up late to watch his beloved Athletics, name and all -- even these guys, particularly considering there was a previous detour to Kansas City.

A cousin of mine in Pennsylvania - a contemporary of my father's and not a major sports fan - still identifies himself as an A's fan.

[Frayed Knot]

If I ever moved out of the NY sphere to a city with [u:386c8p3r]an American League[/u:386c8p3r] team nearby I could see adopting them as my AL team (never really had one with the exception of whoever was playing the Yanx that day) but not as a replacement of or substitute for the Mets.

Besides, long-distance fandom is definitely easier these days. Thanx Al G.

[bmfc1]

Update: Kristen cannot register as well. That's 3 ladies that want to register and cannot. Please help them.

[Guest Edgy DC]

I knew we were having probs.