Several friends have asked me if I was pulling for the Nats with my O's out and how I feel about them losing in the first round again. Here are my thoughts- that have pretty much remained consistent over these years. Would love to especially hear from my fellow Orioles/DC Sports fans how they feel about this.
First of all, I legitimately hate it for many of my friends who are legit, die-hard Nats fans. As fans, it hurts when our teams lose. And several of you Nats fans are also fellow "DC Sports" fans (Redskins, CAPS, Wizards) like me. We have won- and lost together, in amazingly painful ways over the years. I'm genuinely sorry for your pain of going through another postseason dagger. I want you to be happy and experience some sports joy!
Secondly, I wonder if the Nats would win, if it perhaps can contribute to infuse an aura of confidence in our overall local DC Sports culture- in essence contributing to lift what seems to be something of a shroud of "doom and gloom" expectation that many fans seem to embrace and expect lately, especially as the years of futility and heartbreak continue to mount. Though I emphatically believe there is no DC Sports "curse", one thing I wonder is if the growing heartbreak has such an effect on fans psyche and expectations, that perhaps can sometimes translate to have a negative affect on our teams? I do believe teams can possibly feed off of their fans expectations- positively and negatively at times. Should they? No. And perhaps this is a reach in my thinking. But if perhaps Nats success could positively affect and somehow help the other DC teams that I love ('Skins, CAPS, Wizards), this would be an attractive, silver lining factor for me to be ok if the Nats succeed. Still, can't say conclusively if this possible factor is legit or not. Speculation yes, but not certain conclusion.
But year after year, I continue to land on this leaning, thus why I am ok with the Nats not succeeding: I believe that if the Nats succeed more than my Orioles, it would do more hurt to my beloved Birds than good. While on one end Nats success can do positive things, like boost the MASN ratings and revenue (that of course the O's continue to benefit from!), and perhaps even drive Angelos more to up the ante and do what it takes to maintain regional supremacy, I still believe a lot more damage to the O's can come from Nats success. A huge factor is overall fan popularity, revenue and regional supremacy. Though Nats fans hate to admit it, the DMV is still dominated by more O's fans b/c of not only our many more years and local roots while DC had no team, but also b/c of the overwhelming amount of greater historical success that my Birds can boast. The reality is that there are many "fans"- casual baseball fans- who are kind of on the fence between the two teams, some who actually pull for both, and some who are undecided who to give their allegiance to. There are also young, legit baseball fans growing up in the DMV who are in their formative years and perhaps are trying to land on who their team will be- going forward. Maybe their parents are O's, or Nats fans, and they are trying to decide where they land. A decision that can have massive long-term effects on these 2 franchises. If the Nats succeed more, I would imagine that this chunk of fans would shift more to the Nats, therefore helping their revenue more, and hurting my O's succeed more in the long-term. I want my O's to continue to win- and to always stay in Baltimore with no risk of ever leaving. I believe a big part of this is for the O's to continue to dominate the region, and maintain fan supremacy- fiscally and numerically.
On the flip side of how the Nats winning could take more fans that could otherwise go with the O's, I am already hearing from some Nats fans who are so over the annual heartbreak, that they are going to the O's! No complaints there!
Yes, I have clearly spent, what is probably too much time thinking about this trivial and non-important issue! There are certainly more important things to ponder a lot more. But a lot of you know how much I love my teams, and my sports. I don't take anything in life lightly and go all in with fierce intensity with my pursuits, thoughts and interests.
Then on top of these thoughts that I have ruminated on, I came across this piece by Al Galdi (fellow DC Sports/O's fan!), who in my opinion is one of the- and perhaps the most insightful and sharp MLB local sports radio/media analysts. As expected, he does an incredible job of breaking down not only how and why the Nats continue to lose in the postseason, but also insert this little part at the end- which resonates similarly to what I am explaining:
"These Nats playoff failures are bad for baseball in D.C. Yes, I know that’s an obvious thing to say, but here’s what I mean. Game 5 on TBS got a 14.0 television rating in the D.C. market. That’s the second-best rating ever for a Nats game locally (the 2012 NLDS Game 5 loss to St. Louis is no. 1 at 16.7). But this Game 5 got a 22.9 rating in Chicago. For comparison’s sake, the Redskins’ have drawn the following ratings over the first four weeks of the 2017 regular season: 19.1, 20.5, 23.3, 23.2. So while the Nats have a terrific fan base, there still is a ways to go. How do you enlarge a fan base? By making deep playoff runs. That’s how the Redskins became such a big deal in this city. And that’s what it will take for Nats do-or-die playoff games to do better than two-thirds of what Redskins regular-season games do."
And here is especially the dagger thats stands out- the very last sentence in his piece:
"Additionally, deep Nats playoff runs would go a long way toward reducing the still-sizable Orioles fan base in the DMV."
Spot on. This is why, though I legitimately hurt for my fellow Nats sports buddies, I am perfectly content with the Nats continued postseason failures.
PC: Dan Steinberg, AKA: "D.C. Sports Bog