Nats: No 1 UK fan
So what’s the deal with this limey Nats’ fan?
As you’ll read elsewhere (when I get around to writing it), most of my growing up was on the sandy shores of Long Island. Those days I was a Metsie, not that my love for the Shea-sters has completely waned. Fast forward from the late 70s when my family escaped Suffolk Co. to the late 90s. Circumstance placed me in D.C. I had a four year posting in the District and had a home in Bethesda.
By this time, I was following the game again. Thanks to a very expensive subscription to Baseball Weekly and weekly videotapes from a company in Belgium, I was pretty knowledgable too. Serendipitously, I saw a lot of Oriole games on tape. Cal and Brady - yeah!
Naturally, I started following the O’s when I arrived in Bethesda in March '97. I probably saw about a dozen or so games a season at OPACY. Friends and I took a road trip up to Cleveland in '98 as a contact had access to very good seats at the Jake. One weekend I drove down to the Smoky Mountains and took the opportunity to catch a couple of Appy League games. Other highlights of that four years included a trip to Spring Training, a three game O’s series in Seattle, being at Busch to see Will Clark homer in his first at bat for the Cards and a couple of games out in Salt Lake.
Back with the Orioles: well, I think we all agree that Angelos sucks. What did that man do to that team that didn’t suck? The O’s went from a contending/big budget team to a bigger budget/underachieving team in the blink of an eye. Still, watching Cal and the Moose was compensation.
In 2001 I came back to the UK. I forgot about the O’s. With little prospect of returning to the US for sometime and no longer involved in DMB, the interest waned. I was vaguely aware of the Angels winning the Series, the Yankees buying everything and the Mets generally buying leftovers and losing.
Come late 2004, in between following the Red Sox triump, I was tracking the prospective move of the Expos to D.C. Knowing how D.C. government and MLB work, it was part fascination to see how the two parties could louse it up. As we all know, they nearly did, but a degree of common sense prevailed.
That could have been that. Interest piqued again, I dipped in and out through Spring Training to see how the Nats were faring. It was probably only when opening day at RFK dawned that I realised that I was starting to care about this team. Well, I think I love ‘em now because I care as much about Ws and Ls as I do about the boneheadedness of management.
But, please don’t tell the Metsies.
As you’ll read elsewhere (when I get around to writing it), most of my growing up was on the sandy shores of Long Island. Those days I was a Metsie, not that my love for the Shea-sters has completely waned. Fast forward from the late 70s when my family escaped Suffolk Co. to the late 90s. Circumstance placed me in D.C. I had a four year posting in the District and had a home in Bethesda.
By this time, I was following the game again. Thanks to a very expensive subscription to Baseball Weekly and weekly videotapes from a company in Belgium, I was pretty knowledgable too. Serendipitously, I saw a lot of Oriole games on tape. Cal and Brady - yeah!
Naturally, I started following the O’s when I arrived in Bethesda in March '97. I probably saw about a dozen or so games a season at OPACY. Friends and I took a road trip up to Cleveland in '98 as a contact had access to very good seats at the Jake. One weekend I drove down to the Smoky Mountains and took the opportunity to catch a couple of Appy League games. Other highlights of that four years included a trip to Spring Training, a three game O’s series in Seattle, being at Busch to see Will Clark homer in his first at bat for the Cards and a couple of games out in Salt Lake.
Back with the Orioles: well, I think we all agree that Angelos sucks. What did that man do to that team that didn’t suck? The O’s went from a contending/big budget team to a bigger budget/underachieving team in the blink of an eye. Still, watching Cal and the Moose was compensation.
In 2001 I came back to the UK. I forgot about the O’s. With little prospect of returning to the US for sometime and no longer involved in DMB, the interest waned. I was vaguely aware of the Angels winning the Series, the Yankees buying everything and the Mets generally buying leftovers and losing.
Come late 2004, in between following the Red Sox triump, I was tracking the prospective move of the Expos to D.C. Knowing how D.C. government and MLB work, it was part fascination to see how the two parties could louse it up. As we all know, they nearly did, but a degree of common sense prevailed.
That could have been that. Interest piqued again, I dipped in and out through Spring Training to see how the Nats were faring. It was probably only when opening day at RFK dawned that I realised that I was starting to care about this team. Well, I think I love ‘em now because I care as much about Ws and Ls as I do about the boneheadedness of management.
But, please don’t tell the Metsies.
posted by pete at 2:04 pm
1 Comments:
terrible joke, but i used to tell people that i had to declare my american accent at customs.
so, i have a middle of the road, south-east england accent. though put me back in the u.s. and i can talk american.
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