There’s a suspicion amongst DMV baseball followers that each Washington Nationals fan of a sure age secretly has an Orioles jersey or possibly a hat buried of their closet. It’s an indication of their authentic rooting curiosity. With the Nationals plummeting to the underside of the National League East this yr and the Orioles closing in on their first 100-win season in 40-plus years, some have begun digging for that orange proof.
“Before the Nats came, this region was all O’s fans,” mentioned Mike Hicks, a St. Mary’s County native who turned 50 this week. “So when the Nationals came in 2005, I think it gave D.C. residents something more to root for. But they still got that Orioles jersey hidden somewhere.”
Hicks discovered a workaround for that deception with out hiding his fanhood.
When he and his father, Jim, attend Orioles-Nationals video games — they attempt to get to not less than one matchup every season — Mike dons his custom-made prime. A number of years in the past he took a clean jersey for each groups, minimize every down the center and had them professionally sewn collectively. Along every again half are the respective staff’s World Series patches.
Mike joked that he has been cautious with how outwardly he cheers or how usually he activates the TV with how profitable the Orioles have been, notching win No. 98 Tuesday evening, 1-0 over the Nationals at Camden Yards. This week they’ll have an opportunity to clinch their first division title since 2014.
“It’s been a great last two years,” mentioned Jim, a lifelong Orioles fan. “You see some of the moves starting to pay off. When Adley [Rutschman] came up and Gunnar [Henderson] got here [both last season], stuff took off. It’s been great. The only time I’ll root for the Nats is when the Orioles are out of everything. I was rooting for the Nats when they won the World Series [in 2019]; they’re still a local team. But that was a little hard to do.”
Troy Haliburton grew up in Washington and lives there, so, like lots of his friends, baseball fandom began with the closest main league membership. But his childhood pleasure took a toll watching the Orioles repeatedly end close to the underside of the American League East.
That’s when, as a center schooler crying after one notably disheartening loss, Haliburton first heard a pearl of recommendation from his father that will come to outline his relationship with the game. “Winning and losing is part of life,” his father mentioned. “And part of life is making choices.”
The selection Haliburton in the end made was to ditch the Orioles. Shortly after, he discovered an allegiance to the closer-to-home, newly fashioned Nationals.
“I definitely still have a soft spot for the O’s chasing 100 wins,” Haliburton mentioned, admitting to have given up by July 4 on the Nationals, who at that time had been already a downtrending 34-51. “But this team is very likable and they have an exciting style of play. … Looking back, I would tell middle school me that it’s OK to root for a winner. It feels good to root for a winner.”
Baseball rooting curiosity within the district and its Maryland and Virginia suburbs can usually be traced by age.
Fans there who don’t bear in mind baseball earlier than 18 years in the past when the Nationals arrived from Montreal, could have by no means proven curiosity within the staff from Baltimore. But these like Mike Hicks and Haliburton would have naturally been drawn to the Orioles first.
That’s the case with Charmona Whitfield, too. Her affinity for baseball began in faculty when she started relationship her now-husband, Telly, who pitched at Methodist College in Fayetteville, North Carolina — greater than 320 miles from any MLB park.
The Whitfields moved to Maryland in 1996 and shortly turned Orioles season-ticket-package-holding followers. “A baseball family,” as she known as it. They held on tightly to their O’s fandom that was initiated by back-to-back American League Championship Series journeys in 1996 and 1997 however ushered in a 15-year playoff drought. When they moved to Fairfax County, Virginia, shortly thereafter, they pivoted to the budding Nationals.
“It was disappointing for the O’s because they weren’t winning,” Whitfield mentioned. “But the last three or four years, you could tell they were getting some things together. … We kept our eye on the O’s, but obviously we were following the Nats because they were consistently winning, getting better and better. Then when they finally won, we were screaming as loud as we could.”
Whitfield likes to say she has two groups, one in every league. But if somebody asks who her staff is or who she’d lean towards in a possible World Series matchup, what would she say?
“I will say the Nats, but I’ve never given up on the O’s,” Whitfield mentioned. “We were at the game [Sept. 15 against the Tampa Bay Rays, second in the AL East] and we were so excited that Baltimore was winning. The Nats are now back in the O’s situation where we suck and have to build our farm system. I’m so excited and proud of the O’s because they were a team that when we first moved here was really doing it.”
Gardenville native Nicki Castagna, 46, by no means felt her fandom sway. Similar to Mike Hicks, she’s been an Orioles fan “as far as I can remember remembering.”
Castagna by no means sensed any true animosity. The nature of the 2 groups discovering unbiased success in separate eras makes them troublesome to painting as conventional rivals the best way the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees are. As Haliburton mentioned, it feels good to root for a winner, and thus far, DMV followers haven’t been pressed to decide on in a given yr.
Playoff pushes for each Baltimore and Washington in 2012, 2014 and 2016 had been as shut as they got here. But the one staff to flee the divisional spherical in any of these years was the Orioles in 2014.
“I’ve always felt like it’s been a friendly rivalry,” Castagna mentioned. “I think a lot of people from the D.C. Beltway and that Maryland area, once they got a team, they were like, ‘OK, that’s our team.’ It was more of a natural pull to that. Then there were people that were anti-Angelos [Orioles ownership] that were like, ‘Yeah, we’re going there!’ But I’ve never felt like it was a nasty, hate-hate thing.”
“I feel like they’re our sister team or brother team,” she continued. “As long as they’re not challenging us, then I can kind of be like, ‘Hey, they’re our brother.’ But I want to kick their butts tonight.”
It wasn’t unusual to seek out fandoms intertwined in numerous types Tuesday evening. Some paired a commemorative Ravens baseball jersey with a district hat. Or pal teams had been divided, with Nationals followers and Orioles followers strolling Camden Yards collectively.
Picture a Venn diagram of Orioles and Nationals followers. The outer two pockets are those that individually journey with both group. Then the place the circles overlap — a good portion of the fan bases — are those that hold their fandom of the opposite tucked away, saving it for a playoff run.
“It’s easier to root for teams that are close to you,” Mike Hicks mentioned. “When the [Baltimore] Colts left there was nobody. There were people in North Carolina who were still [Washington] fans until the Panthers came [in 1995]. I’m sure they still got [Washington] jerseys somewhere in their closet too.”
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Source: www.bostonherald.com