Most people, myself included, just like the “W” hats rather than the actual team.

“Having lived in DC for much of my life, we really don’t have any connection to the city of Baltimore, and many only followed the O’s because there did not exist an alternative.”

It’s true and it’s mutual. It really is kind of an odd alienation between the two cities given how close they are.

Baltimore’s in Maryland. The Nats ain’t. Therefore, they suck.

Many people question how you can possibly be a Nationals fan; to qualify, you either a.) deserted the Orioles or b.) just started following baseball.

Some make the point that they were just waiting for a DC team, but really, the O’s are just up the road and were covered by every news station here anyway. Which team did those people follow before the Nationals?

and it just seems to me like its a contrived Baseball atmosphere. I didn’t initially route against the Nationals, I actually had them pegged as a team I could route for in the NL.

Then I realized how truly bad a Baseball town DC is. Another turning point in my anti-Nats views was when I went to a Nats game with my dad and a coworker of his and the coworker asked me how I became an Orioles fan, as if they played in Wyoming instead of Maryland. Ever since then I’ve routed against the Nationals.

And I say that with love because I am as guilty of this as anyone. Once, Baltimore was a top-tier city in this country and though it probably has not been near that in my lifetime (born in 1983), I grew up hearing from my dad and from my grandparents about the glory days of this city and it’s the place I identify with. It’s rich with character and imbued with an older history than DC can ever hope to be – naturally, since DC sprung out from Maryland’s loins after independence, whereas Baltimore goes far back into the colonial times.

So it’s like hating a more famous younger brother, as far as the feelings between Baltimore and DC. I chafe that DC is important enough to get a mention on the national weather forecast but Baltimore isn’t. I want to grind my teeth when I tell someone from farther west that I’m from Baltimore and they respond, “Oh, so you’re near DC.” If I wanted you to identify me as being from near DC, then I would have said that. And the people who populate the area immediately outside of it (Monkey/PG Counties and NOVA) are increasingly transplants from other areas who don’t have any real connection or emotional attachment to Baltimore or Maryland history, which furthers the alienation between the two places.

Then you get into the news, and DC is always in the news, which does make sense since it is the nation’s capital and all the important stuff happens there. But Baltimore’s only on the news when something bad happens, like we’re the murder capital of the country or the syphilis capital of the world or whatever. Right now our one source of pride comes from our professional sports teams, and since the Orioles haven’t had a winning season since 1997 that pretty much leaves the Ravens – a team which, even when good, will never get any respect because it’s Baltimore.

I mean, what is Baltimore to people? It’s the world of Homicide and The Wire, of drug deals and murdered witnesses and addicts and dilapidation and declining ports and bad schools and petty corruption and a newspaper that used to be world-class and now is barely worthy of being a branch office for some clowns in Chicago. No one from Baltimore will dispute these things, but the Baltimore person knows what’s still great about this place and is overjoyed that the flaws are exposed because maybe now we can fix some of them. Plus, all those other places thinking they’re better than us can suck it: shine the light on those places and I bet they are messed up too.

Into this steps the Washington Nationals, and really they were doomed to be loathed by the Baltimore-area fans from the beginning for having the audacity to exist in DC. They suck, their new stadium sucks and their fans are by and large the transplants I mentioned earlier – who filled the stadium when it was new and quickly hopped off the bandwagon. And their money would be flowing up our way – into our team and our economy – and now it’s not because Bud Selig was too stubborn to just obliterate the team from existence after it failed in Montreal (because if he had to contract teams it would be admitting his prior expansion was a failure). Yet the Nats will be the darlings if they are good because they are from DC. One more thing where a storied Baltimore or Maryland tradition and one of the few things we can be proud of is overshadowed by something from that young upstart to the south.

So as someone who’s lived within 5 miles of I-695 my whole life, I say fuck all that. Fuck DC, fuck the Nats, fuck the curly W’s, fuck their mascot, fuck their stadium, and fuck anything I forgot to mention (though I leave out their fans on purpose because I’m sure most of them are nice people).

That’s why the anti-Nats vibe.