Congratulations to the Nationals!

[wildbillhiccup]

On 10/31/2019 at 8:59 AM, TonySoprano said:

85% of the current O's fanbase (what's left of it) couldn't name a single player on the O's roster. O.K. maybe, Mancini.  But now every one of them have the Ravens logo as their Facebook profile picture.

Born in D.C., first a Senators fan, I adopted the Orioles because they were from Maryland.   Unlike many here, I refuse to be bitter about the return of baseball in D.C.   Attendance was down 34% in 2003 and the Nats were still in Montreal for another 2 seasons.      The Orioles damage was largely self-inflicted by ownership. 

For the first 25 years of my life, the Orioles had a winning record in 23 of them.  In the 10 years following the 1983 Series, the Orioles had a losing record in 5 of them.  Then ownership happened.  26 seasons under ownership,  18 of them have been losers.  Despite all that, and even with the recent success in my hometown,  I'm stuck with the Orioles.  Hopefully, they've finally found religion and will build this the right way. 

Today, I'm very happy for the Nationals.   If you want to downvote me for that, knock yourselves out.   

To borrow from the opening speech in "Patton," alright, now you sons of b-- you know how I feel....  Dismissed.
 

 

I get where you're coming from, but the Nats have been competitive (just not "this" competitive) for awhile. The majority of their fan base is the very definition of a fair weather fan and it took winning the World Series for them to even feign interest. Not exactly an apples to apples comparison IMO. 

[wildbillhiccup]

On 10/31/2019 at 8:02 AM, DrungoHazewood said:

Ah yes, I remember the old days (two weeks ago) when 85% of the current Nats fanbase couldn't name a single player on the Nats roster.  But now every one of them have the Walgreens logo as their Facebook profile picture.

I'd go one further and say they probably couldn't name more two active players in MLB. 

[wildbillhiccup]

53 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

This is pretty accurate, but then again, you can say that about a lot of Capital fans as well. People like winners and at the end of the day, this team deserved to win. They came back multiple times, their big time players came through and their bullpen was nails. 

I wasn't rooting for them, but I'm more ambivalent then anything when it comes to them winning.

The Caps still have their die hard (albeit) smaller fan base. There's no such thing as a die hard Nats fan. I wasn't rooting for them either, but I also wasn't rooting for the Astros after seeing how terribly they handled the whole situation with the female reporter. 

[atomic]

1 hour ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Pink Hatter is a term used to describe people who wear team gear as a trendy fashion accessory, despite the fact they couldn't care less about the team in question.  For example, a Red Sox "fan" who wears his green third alternate Sox jersey everywhere but doesn't have the slightest idea who Yaz, Bill Buckner, or Jimmie Foxx are/were.

Why would anyone under 40 know who those players are?  I think this gate keeping as to who is a fan is pretty stupid. 

[atomic]

1 hour ago, Tony-OH said:

This is pretty accurate, but then again, you can say that about a lot of Capital fans as well. People like winners and at the end of the day, this team deserved to win. They came back multiple times, their big time players came through and their bullpen was nails. 

I wasn't rooting for them, but I'm more ambivalent then anything when it comes to them winning.

More people know who Ovechkin is than any baseball player.  He transcends the sport.  The Capitals were like rock stars in DC even before the Stanley Cup victory.   They have a lot of players with big personalities.   Baseball really doesn't have an Ovechkin, Lebron or Brady.    

[DrungoHazewood]

6 minutes ago, atomic said:

Why would anyone under 40 know who those players are?  I think this gate keeping as to who is a fan is pretty stupid. 

History is overrated, and museums are for suckers.  When I go to Cooperstown and see 10-year-olds there I give them each $20 for a bus ticket back to somewhere relevant.

[foxfield]

22 hours ago, TonySoprano said:

Hondo is a very big man, 6'7", or 3" taller than Boog Powell, who wasn't exactly tiny in those days.   One story I heard was someone tried to barehand catch one of Frank's HRs and ended up with a busted finger.  If my father had his way, we would have lived in NoVA, but instead we were in PG County, same as my mother's family and his.  My father was a lifelong Senators fan and didn't jump on the Yankees bandwagon like his older brother.    I totally get the whole point about how obnoxious bandwagon "fans" are; I have a Joysey in-law who ditched the Mets for the Sawx in '04.  

BTW, Snyder is doing his worst to kill football in DC.

In my dreams, Snyder sells the Redskins for a mint and decides to take his talents to the big apple and he buys the Yankees.  Then instead of screwing my two favorite franchises....

[Sanfran327]

Echoing a lot of sentiments from earlier in the thread, I'm happy for my Nats fan friends, but also annoyed at the sudden interest. Maybe it's more annoying because it's the Nats and many of us NOVA/DC folks are in the local social media territory and see all of these brand new fans coming out of the woodwork.

Those of us that post here are a rare breed. We live and die with a historically bad team through thick and thin, wondering if we'll ever be fortunate enough to feel this type of joy. From our perspective (or at least from mine) the bandwagoners are so easy to resent because they're happy about a team that they didn't give two squirts about 2 months ago. And they're all over our social media timelines in their new hats and World Series Champions t-shirts. I really don't want to be judgmental about it, but damn it, it's annoying. I'd never call anyone out, but I'm annoyed as hell. 

I watched because I have some close friends that are legitimate die hards. I haven't watched the World Series in a very long time. I just don't spend a lot of time watching non-Orioles baseball. I spend enough screen time on my own team. Anyway, as I was watching, I was nearly emotionless. I had some feels late in Game 7, but mostly because I would have hated to see them blow it. I don't know if I emoted at all after the final pitch - I just didn't care. The Nats are not my team and never will be. The idea of jumping ship is just so foreign to me that I can't even process it. How in the world can you just decide to root for another team? Or just decide to root for any team for that matter. If it's not organic, is it even real? The deeper resentment that I have about this is that most Nats fans used to be Orioles fans that jumped ship. Think about that for a while. What Nats fan over, say, 32-33 years old wasn't an O's fan first if they're a passionate baseball fan? Frobby has his example of the 75 year old fan that used to be a Senators fan. That's an outlier. As a 37 year old guy, many of my friends that are now Nationals fans were following the Orioles 16 years ago. Now they're on cloud 9 because the geographically local team won? Does not compute. 

To each their own. Hopefully the Orioles Hangout faithful are rewarded with a Championship one day. Lord knows we deserve it.

[DrungoHazewood]

2 minutes ago, atomic said:

More people know who Ovechkin is than any baseball player.  He transcends the sport.  The Capitals were like rock stars in DC even before the Stanley Cup victory.   They have a lot of players with big personalities.   Baseball really doesn't have an Ovechkin, Lebron or Brady.    

While baseball does have some demographic issues, your constant exaggeration and hyperbole hurts your case.  Also, your assertions with no data to back it up.  I could just as easily state that Strasburg or Rendon are more popular than Ovechkin, and I've presented as many facts to back that up as you have.

[atomic]

6 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

History is overrated, and museums are for suckers.  When I go to Cooperstown and see 10-year-olds there I give them each $20 for a bus ticket back to somewhere relevant.

Keep looking for Bill Buckner in Cooperstown.  I am sure you will find him if you look hard enough. I don't really know any Oriole players before I was born.   I hear Gus Triandos name sometimes but I don't know anything about him.   

I think your gatekeeping to what makes a fan is tells more about you than them.   

[atomic]

3 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

While baseball does have some demographic issues, your constant exaggeration and hyperbole hurts your case.  Also, your assertions with no data to back it up.  I could just as easily state that Strasburg or Rendon are more popular than Ovechkin, and I've presented as many facts to back that up as you have.

Show me Strasburg's Q score and Ovehckin's Q score.  I looked up the numbers.  I certainly didn't look up Strasburg as no one would know him. I looked up Trout and Ovechkin.  

[DrungoHazewood]

29 minutes ago, wildbillhiccup said:

I'd go one further and say they probably couldn't name more two active players in MLB. 

My guess has long been that if you walked around OPACY with a mic and asked random people what today's lineup is 30-50% would fail after two or three players and you'd hear some Brady Andersons and Brian Roberts and Nick Markakises.  And if they were playing the Rockies or the A's, 75-90% of the people in the stands wouldn't be able to tell you a single relevant fact about anyone on the other team.

Die hards like us are a tiny sliver of the fanbase.

[atomic]

3 minutes ago, atomic said:

Show me Strasburg's Q score and Ovehckin's Q score.  I looked up the numbers.  I certainly didn't look up Strasburg as no one would know him. I looked up Trout and Ovechkin.  

Also I don't even know Rendon is.  Never heard of him.

[Chavez Ravine]

11 hours ago, wildbillhiccup said:

The Caps still have their die hard (albeit) smaller fan base. There's no such thing as a die hard Nats fan. I wasn't rooting for them either, but I also wasn't rooting for the Astros after seeing how terribly they handled the whole situation with the female reporter. 

The Caps also have die hard fans who at some point in time had an intervention orchestrated for them. As a result they stopped following the caps and lived a healthier more sane life for years as a result. In 2018 they fell off the wagon (at least for a day or two).and claimed to be Caps fans.

[TonySoprano]

23 hours ago, wildbillhiccup said:

I get where you're coming from, but the Nats have been competitive (just not "this" competitive) for awhile. The majority of their fan base is the very definition of a fair weather fan and it took winning the World Series for them to even feign interest. Not exactly an apples to apples comparison IMO. 

How are you defining interest?   Attendance?  The Nats have drawn at least 2.25M for each of the last 8 season while the Orioles did that in only 3 of 8.   In their 15 years in D.C. total attendance is 34.75M compared to 30.57M in Baltimore (see table below)   That works out to an average of 279K more in DC per year.  When the Nats lost over 100 games for two straight years, attendance at that time was still 4.1M compared to under 2.9M in Baltimore since 2018.

Hey now, Soprano, the DC market is much larger.  True.  Baltimore metro's population is very close to that of St. Louis.   How are the Cards doing?  Well in 21 of the past 22 seasons, they've drawn over 3M, and the one year they didn't (2003), the number was 2.9M.  Over those same last 15 years, the Cardinals have drawn over 51M or 67% higher than Baltimore.    Truth be told, the Cardinals are one of the few fanbases that you can't label as fair weather. 

The bottom line is anyway you want to shake the numbers, you can make whatever argument you like.  Both the Orioles and Nats went to the playoffs in 2012, 2014, and 2016.  They continued to have success since then while the Orioles cratered.   Attendance in Baltimore was below 2M for 4 straight years until they found success in 2012.   In 2014, with a division title, attendance was the highest it had been in 9 years.  Were all those extra tickets sold to fair weather fans?  You can't apply that label to DC without sticking it on Baltimore as well.  When most teams do better, there is generally a reflection in the attendance.  St. Louis will always draw and TB never will.

2019    BAL     54    108    1,307,807    WAS    93    69    2,259,781
2018    BAL     47    115    1,564,192    WAS    82    80    2,529,604
2017    BAL     75    87    2,028,424    WAS    97    65    2,524,980
2016    BAL     89    73    2,172,344    WAS    95    67    2,481,938
2015    BAL     81    81    2,281,202    WAS    83    79    2,619,843
2014    BAL     96    66    2,464,473    WAS    96    66    2,579,389
2013    BAL     85    77    2,357,561    WAS    86    76    2,652,422
2012    BAL     93    69    2,102,240    WAS    98    64    2,370,794
2011    BAL     69    93    1,755,461    WAS    80    81    1,940,478
2010    BAL     66    96    1,733,019    WAS    69    93    1,828,066
2009    BAL     64    98    1,907,163    WAS    59    103    1,817,226
2008    BAL     68    93    1,950,075    WAS    59    102    2,320,400
2007    BAL     69    93    2,164,822    WAS    73    89    1,943,812
2006    BAL     70    92    2,153,139    WAS    71    91    2,153,056
2005    BAL     74    88    2,624,740    WAS    81    81    2,731,993