Returning for a moment to the story about the pile of manure, the little boy, and the pony. Boy-oh-boy, the **** is on fire isn’t it! I expect that nearly everyone has seen the comments on what Stan and the Nationals may or may not have done to facilitate (even encourage?) the invasion by Phillies fans. Read about it everywhere: from a source that tends to be a little snarky, in the Washington Post, in a fan blog, and in a virtual therapy session (130 comments and counting) over at Mark Zuckerman’s Nats Insider.
Yesterday, I decided to focus on the pony, but I’d be lying if I said all the rage didn’t resonate with me. So why do I feel so angry?
This might sound like a chick comment, but I think it’s about feelings. Nationals fans love their team, often despite the baseball. A lot of us spend hundreds, even thousands of dollars on tickets, while feeling like the organization doesn’t care, or probably more accurately, doesn’t care enough about us. It’s a little bit like a bad relationship where she’s totally obsessed, and he’s just not that into her.
If this fangirl’s instinct is to look for a pony, the organization’s instinct should be to look for shovels. Some of the shovels are about scouting and development and everything else, including spending, to improve the baseball.
But there’s another shovel out there, just waiting for someone to pick it up. This shovel deals with feelings and requires the Nationals organization to reach out to fans to say, “Yikes! We didn’t want that to happen. Beginning today, we’ll work harder to show you how much we care about Nationals fans and how we’re working to build a bigger fan base.” The Nationals organization could be all wrong, or it could be more complicated than it appears, but it doesn’t really matter. What matters is what every smart husband or boyfriend or significant other knows, the path to reconciliation starts not with being defensive, but rather with saying, “I’m sorry.”
Original Story:
http://wevegotheart.com/2010/04/06/ab...
