Camden Yards and Nationals' Park Might As Well Be Called Fennway 2 & 3

This past week I got a special treat because the Red Sox were here in the Washington D.C. area to take on the Nats and O's.  Despite having my wisdom teeth pulled I attended a game at each stadium and watched the remaining four from my bed with painkillers and ice packs on each cheek. Watching the games I felt bad for the hometown teams and fans, especially the Nats. Despite the denial of the MASN announcers you could clearly hear the "Let's Go Red Sox" chants drowning out any sound that a Nationals' fan may have been making.  Being at the games I felt even more sympathy for the lowly Nationals. How devastating must it be to be in your home ballpark and hear chants for the other team, and that your first sell-out since the new ballpark opened was mostly due to the visiting crowd.  The same can be said for Camden Yards, there were at least 2-1 Sox fans over Oriole fans.

Living in the D.C. area I've kind of developed a soft spot for both teams (even though the O's are in the A.L. East, they've kind of stunk for a decade now) and seeing Boston coming here and their fans taking over it was ridiculous.  Heck, the Nats' Team Store was even selling Red Sox merchandise.  I'm not talking about the vendors on the street, I'm talking about the store inside the stadium.

I know D.C. is a football town and the O's have been down lately, but come on Washingtonians and Bird Land, take some pride in these young teams, sure they're both at the bottom of their respective divisions right now, but they've got good young players that will (hopefully) only get better.  My hope is that at the end of the month and first part of August when I head back out to Camden Yards I feel like a visiting fan, and the next Nats' game I go to there are more curly W hats in the stands than Mets or Phillies.

I can only speak for this area, but I'd love to hear from other fans out there to see if their stadiums are taken over by Sox fans or even the Yanks' fans (I hear they travel well too).