Treason

David Brooks thinks that baseball loyalties are changeable, like bad marriages, ill-fitting religious beliefs, or soiled diapers. Calling himself a Mets fan, he announces that he is "contemplating the uncontemplatable: that I will switch my allegiance from the beloved Mets to the new team of my adopted town. I will become a fan of the Washington Nationals."

This is treason.

Oh, sure, I can understand it. I've been a Mets fan from the very beginning. My first major league baseball games were 1962 at the old Polo Grounds in upper Manhattan. I've suffered through many indignities -- the rustication of Tom Seaver, the trade of Nolan Ryan, the dispersion of the dominant World Champion 1986 team, and many, many lean years. Recently, I've even tuned them out, leaving them nothing but background noise in my life. And I've cheered as Washington has acquired its own team (especially because, as I posted often last fall, the stadium deal is a boondoggle for fans like me living outside the District).

But I won't switch teams any more than I would switch countries. David Brooks is contemplating committing treason.

UPDATE (3/30): After doing a Technorati search on the Brooks article, I found that Wonkette had posted a short item about it. I've never really paid much attention to Wonkette, and we can debate whose loss that is. Her item notes that another blogger is congratulating Brooks for coming out of the closet. See, the column is titled "Whose Team Am I On?" and it contains language that might have a double meaning (some obviously deliberate). Wow! That's too juvenile even for me, and that's saying something.