Opening Day

Generations
Originally uploaded by tbridge

What a day. The loss of Harry Kalas, the Phillies announcer, before the game began today was a crushing loss for the sport at large, and it put a pall over the game. The Nats performance was uneven, and ended up losing 9-8, despite another 9th inning opening day homer by Ryan Zimmerman. They continued to leave runners in scoring position, and continued to make critical defensive miscues that cost the team.

What truly marred the day, though, were the obnoxious jackholes that came down on the train Philly in our section. A pair of them got pretty much hammered and belligerent in our section and eventually were thrown out by a threesome of angry ushers in the 8th inning. Blocking the view, swearing up a storm in front of a couple young families, and generally acting disreputable. I mean, these are the guys that booed Santa Claus and throw D-cell batteries at opponents, so I shouldn’t be too surprised, but next time, Stan Kasten, please don’t invite the cretins from Philly down, okay? Pittsburgh, fine. Mets fans, fine. Hell, Red Sox fans are even welcome. But no more Philly fans, okay?

Tom Bridge

I live and work in the District of Columbia. I write at We Love DC, a blog I helped start, I work at Technolutionary, a company I helped start, and I’m happy doing both. I enjoy watching baseball, cooking, and gardening. I grow a mean pepper, keep a clean scorebook, and wash the dishes when I’m done. Read Why I Love DC.

6 thoughts on “Opening Day”

Enough with the Santa thing! It happened in 1968 (which I bet you didn’t know, and are just reciting tired rhetoric), and other fans in other cities have done much worse things, but just don’t get the ‘credit’ by the media.

Besides, at least Philly fans support their teams. Nationals can barely draw 12,000 a game it seems, and those that are at games seem confused as to what to do…. ‘should we cheer now? Well, maybe, but better not too loudly, lest anyone think poorly of us, or as bad sportsmen, perhaps….perhaps just a nice clap or two.’ It must be embarrassing to have more of the visiting team’s fans at your home games… and the Nationals President begging for them to come, too.

Thanks for the Harry the K comment, and sorry a few morons were out of control. Try not to chalk it up to a whole fan base based on an outdated stereotype.

Tom, thanks for the write up. Nice column by your namesake in today’s wapo.

Dcexp, while I agree that generalization re entire cities are probably not a good idea. The problem remains that when the situation gets unruly in a stadium, you dont have much of a choice. it is not like you can just get up and move..

I actually did know that booing Santa was back in 1968, but throwing batteries dates from the late 1990s, DCExP, which is it a lot more recent than anyone would like. Sure there were well-behaved Philadelphians in the park yesterday, but they did nothing to try and control their less friendly allies, and that’s part of what a good fanbase does.

Also, get your numbers right. 2008 Attendance averaged 29,000 per game, and we’ve never averaged less than 23,000 per game.

Philly didn’t average more than 23k per game from 1996-2002, so don’t tell me that Philly Fans are always-there-for-good-or-bad fans, either.

To chime in on this, I’m a Phillies fan who lives in Arlington and was at the game yesterday. Our section ended up being about 40/60 Phillies/Nationals fans and that was fine. It was fun. The problem came when most of the Nats fans left around the 7th inning and two or three drunk asses decided to make fun of every Phillies fan for absolutely no reason. The point behind this is that drunk asses exist everywhere and for every team.

There is no reason to characterize all Phillies fans by the acts of some, just like I won’t characterize all Nationals fans by the early leaving, non cheering, yelling at me to sit when the soldiers were on the field, being drunk and making fun of Phillies fans Nats fans that were in my section.

I’ve never had a problem with Phillies fans at Nationals Park. My section did not have any in it either.

When I went to the first Nationals game ever in 2005, the Phillies fan were good hosts for the most part, just a couple of Expos jokes and one winner who heckled us in the parking lot after the game.

Flyers fans are more troublesome at Caps game, but no where near as obnoxious as Pengyunz fans.

I find this hilarious. I just moved to DC from Philly about a year ago. While I’m a diehard Yankees fan (I know, I know), I rooted for the Phillies while I lived there and unfortunately moved before I got to see them win the World Series. Now that I’m in DC, I’ll root for the Nats since they are now my “home” team.

I find the Santa/battery thing hilarious; it sums up Philly pretty well. And I love Philly.

On another note, most of my Phillies friends are also Eagles/Flyers fans… Do with that what you please. (I do NOT like the Eagles).

And also, since we’re just down 95 from each other, I think it’s great that Phillies fans are making the trek down here. I hope the Nats fans will go up to Philly and cause some ruckus up there!

Agree with above – there are drunk aholes for every fanbase.

DCExP on April 13, 2009 at 11:42 pm said:

Enough with the Santa thing! It happened in 1968 (which I bet you didn’t know, and are just reciting tired rhetoric), and other fans in other cities have done much worse things, but just don’t get the ‘credit’ by the media.

Besides, at least Philly fans support their teams. Nationals can barely draw 12,000 a game it seems, and those that are at games seem confused as to what to do…. ‘should we cheer now? Well, maybe, but better not too loudly, lest anyone think poorly of us, or as bad sportsmen, perhaps….perhaps just a nice clap or two.’ It must be embarrassing to have more of the visiting team’s fans at your home games… and the Nationals President begging for them to come, too.

Thanks for the Harry the K comment, and sorry a few morons were out of control. Try not to chalk it up to a whole fan base based on an outdated stereotype.
Radman on April 14, 2009 at 8:12 am said:

Tom, thanks for the write up. Nice column by your namesake in today’s wapo.

Dcexp, while I agree that generalization re entire cities are probably not a good idea. The problem remains that when the situation gets unruly in a stadium, you dont have much of a choice. it is not like you can just get up and move..
Tom Bridge on April 14, 2009 at 8:33 am said:

I actually did know that booing Santa was back in 1968, but throwing batteries dates from the late 1990s, DCExP, which is it a lot more recent than anyone would like. Sure there were well-behaved Philadelphians in the park yesterday, but they did nothing to try and control their less friendly allies, and that’s part of what a good fanbase does.

Also, get your numbers right. 2008 Attendance averaged 29,000 per game, and we’ve never averaged less than 23,000 per game.

Philly didn’t average more than 23k per game from 1996-2002, so don’t tell me that Philly Fans are always-there-for-good-or-bad fans, either.
Chris Seay on April 14, 2009 at 9:07 am said:

To chime in on this, I’m a Phillies fan who lives in Arlington and was at the game yesterday. Our section ended up being about 40/60 Phillies/Nationals fans and that was fine. It was fun. The problem came when most of the Nats fans left around the 7th inning and two or three drunk asses decided to make fun of every Phillies fan for absolutely no reason. The point behind this is that drunk asses exist everywhere and for every team.

There is no reason to characterize all Phillies fans by the acts of some, just like I won’t characterize all Nationals fans by the early leaving, non cheering, yelling at me to sit when the soldiers were on the field, being drunk and making fun of Phillies fans Nats fans that were in my section.
WFY on April 14, 2009 at 9:36 am said:

I’ve never had a problem with Phillies fans at Nationals Park. My section did not have any in it either.

When I went to the first Nationals game ever in 2005, the Phillies fan were good hosts for the most part, just a couple of Expos jokes and one winner who heckled us in the parking lot after the game.

Flyers fans are more troublesome at Caps game, but no where near as obnoxious as Pengyunz fans.
Mal on April 14, 2009 at 12:48 pm said:

I find this hilarious. I just moved to DC from Philly about a year ago. While I’m a diehard Yankees fan (I know, I know), I rooted for the Phillies while I lived there and unfortunately moved before I got to see them win the World Series. Now that I’m in DC, I’ll root for the Nats since they are now my “home” team.

I find the Santa/battery thing hilarious; it sums up Philly pretty well. And I love Philly.

On another note, most of my Phillies friends are also Eagles/Flyers fans… Do with that what you please. (I do NOT like the Eagles).

And also, since we’re just down 95 from each other, I think it’s great that Phillies fans are making the trek down here. I hope the Nats fans will go up to Philly and cause some ruckus up there!

Agree with above – there are drunk aholes for every fanbase.