Photo of the Day: November 27, 2009
Morning Roundup: Black Friday Edition
Car Pushed Into Anacostia River By Train
Devendra Banhart @ 9:30 Club
Via the masnsports twitter feed, it appears that some preposterously deluded reality television production company has picked the wrong major league baseball team to build a superfan show around. To wit:
Remember the scene in Fever Pitch where Jimmy Fallon nearly attacks his UPS guy for his season tickets? How about all the challenges he faces throughout the movie as he struggles to balance his baseball fandom with real life?
A local production company is looking to capture those types of moments in a new reality series about Nats fans. IMG Studios, a respected, established production company in Washington DC is looking for die-hard Nationals fans to appear in the series starting this offseason.
"The person or group of friends must find it hard to balance an active social life, romantic relationship, work or family with the "other person" (Nationals) in their life," said IMG Studios in their Casting Call.
Ooof. This sounds like it has the potential to be the saddest reality show ever. Sadder than Intervention, even. You can almost picture the third act break cliffhanger: will our rabid Nats fan leave the stadium during the 7th inning, or the 8th?
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
7th or 8th inning? Try 3rd.
What, are you kidding? Nats fans don't even show up until the 4th.
Nice. Maybe now we'll find the real story behind why they replaced Hungry Hungry Homer with Paint-drinking Pete.
Totally misread that as "mansports twitter feed", thought they were leaving out all the female sports fans.
Yeh, I read it as "warm dry crotch", too.
What are you talking about? Assuming Nats superfans exist, this is the best major league baseball team to build a superfan show around precisely because it would be so sad.
amen, cj. this is just someone begging to be mocked.
Hang on, hang on. Let me get this straight. Somebody actually watched Fever Pitch with Jimmy Fallon?
Sorry, I read Fever Pitch with Jimmy Fallon as, CHOWDERHEAD CINEMATIC ABORTION
Me too.
This guy: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1161294/1/index.htm
So I'm a pretty big Nats fan... lived near RFK when they moved here and had no real conflicting baseball loyalty. I have connected with many very die-hard Nats fans online. Mock what you will, at least no one can accuse these folks of being fairweather fans. I have not been as devoted since... well... since they spent the first half of this season being unwatchable, but I guarantee I know some folks who watched, listened to, or attended all 162 games.
One person's "pathetic" is another's "getting in on the ground floor"
So it's pathetic to support your home team when they're losing?
Was it pathetic to route for the caps until recently? Is it pathetic to route for the Wizards? Were the fans of the Yankees in the 1980s pathetic?
I know that Washingtonians (most likely largely transplants) love to mock the Nationals. At least they're not the Redskins. At least they don't (yet) have fair weather fans. Try something original for once and do something other than mock a team that was dismantled by MLB and is finally working on digging itself out of that hole.
I spent my whole life waiting for a home baseball team to route for, and now that we have one I will make sure to support them.
Totally agree
Well then excuse my offended tone. :)
As a native Washingtonian of 42 years, I would assert that any die hard Washington baseball fan would be rooting for the Orioles, because that was and still is our team.
The Nationals are at best a sideshow, at worst an abortion of baseball greed. (My apologies to any Montreal Expos fans/transplants living in DC)
As someone elsewhere in the comments said, it will be a generation at least until people are raised as Nats fans and turn into hard core fans. Winning a couple games might help too.
Aren't the Orioles the team that represents greed? They are the team that arrived while there was a team in Washington. Then Angelos pulled his shenanigans every time Washington tried to get a team which ended in ridiculous concessions to allow the Expos to come here.
I have lived my whole life in the Washington area (the Virginia suburbs, only a true Washingtonian for the past five years) and never, ever considered Baltimore to be my home team.
I used to be an Orioles fan, and the Orioles could have made the choice of rooting between the Nats and the Birds very difficult. Instead, Peter Angelos made it very easy. When he publicly declared his opposition to a Washington baseball team, I ceased to be an Orioles fan. I went to Bowie BaySox games instead.
Any "native Washingtonian" who roots for the Orioles in spite of Anglos' actions is a traitor to the Washington sports community.
You can almost picture the third act break cliffhanger: will our rabid Nats fan leave the stadium during the 7th inning, or the 8th?
Or do I bother to show up at all?
Fever Pitch? Baseball? Jimmy Fallon?
I was confused because when I think of Fever Pitch, I think of the movie with soccer and Colin Firth. You can't go wrong with Colin Firth.
I just don't get the whole idea of an instafan in baseball. Nats woes aside, true die-hards will exist when a generation finishes growing up watching them. Until that day comes is going to be in a distant 30th, behind Tampa, Colorado and Florida when it comes to MLB fan bases. As a rule, baseball fans stick to a team for life.
Oops. Wasn't supposed to be directed at any comment in particular.
We've been waiting for a home team for many many years.
We have a home team now.
There are 2 diehard Nats fans in my house. And we show up for batting practice and stay until the game is over.
Okay, that's 2...
I'm not saying that real fans don't exist. I'm saying that the Nats will have the 30th ranked fan base until the first generation of young fans grow up. You were ready to embrace a new team from day one. Many fans need the childhood memories. You can't quickly build a fan base with one and not the other, not unless an entire market was bitterly angry about being without a team for so long; and the truth of the matter is that Washington, collectively, never really cared that much.
Yes, but in Fever Pitch, the Red Sox actually go on to win the World Series. Does that mean that someone is going to buy the Nationals a seat in the the playoffs? If not, what's the payoff for a show like this? Unless the ultimate goal is to potentially humiliate Nationals fans on yet another national level next season. I'm a Nats fan too, but I'm not sure we even deserve a seat in the playoffs yet. Sorry.
Full disclosure: I'm also a Dodgers fans and after the second straight pathetic performance for the Pennant Race, they don't deserve another shot either.
SFW good agree more, there's two diehard Nats fans in this house too! Three if little blue rally monkeys count!
I'm a Nats fan and I haven't spent my whole life watching them. I was simply never an MLB fan growing up because we didn't have a team anywhere near my hometown in VA. I loved going to Orioles games in college, but I was primed and ready for a real DC team to cling on to when they showed up. I've been sorely dissapointed by their record, but I'm still proud and happy to actually have a home team that I can follow and watch live on a regular basis.
That said, I agree that this will be one of the sadest reality shows ever.
Please accept my apologies, DCKid---my remarks were aimed at "arglebargle."