Take me out to the ballgame...

Four years ago we moved to the Washington DC area from Long Island, New York. We had no particular ties to the DC area but that was where my husband got a job, so that was where we went. I liked DC and figured if we had to be outside the New York metro area, DC was a pretty cool place to end up. I grew on on Long Island and ALL my family still lives there so it was a pretty big thing to move a few hundred miles away. I have always considered myself a New Yorker (and still do) and if you catch me at the right time you'll hear a very distinctive New York accent coloring my words. So my husband and I decided if we were leaving NY than we would have to become Yankees fans. No, it really does not make a whole lot of sense to start liking a baseball team just when you're leaving the area, and it makes even less sense when you coinsider we weren't really big baseball fans before that. Cut to four years later and baseball is like a minor religion in my house. For the last two years we have ordered the cable baseball package and watched Yankee games whenever we could. My husband, previously not a sports fan, now plays fantasy baseball, reads the sports pages, and has baseball hats. I will willing watch a game even if no one else is around. My son is crazy about baseball and at 18 months was trying to pitch like Mike Mussina. My daughter is only 15 months old and only has about 20 words in her vocabulary but one of them is "baseball". Really we've become quite fanatical about it as only our family can.

So it is with incredible excitement that I await Major League Baseball's decision about moving the Montreal Expos to Washington DC. To read the paper, it is looking more and more like a possibility every day. Now there is a baseball team only 30 minutes away from us. The Balitmore Orioles have a great staduim and we've gone there a few times to watch them play the Yankees. But I am not a Balitmore fan (unless of course they're playing the Red Sox and then "Go O's!!") and don't intend to become one. If Washington got a team though, now that might mean some divided loyalties. I would love to be a member of the home crowd when I went to a game. Though to be fair, it does seem like when we've gone to see the Yankees beat the O's, that at least a third of the stadium are NY fans. Go figure. But if Washington had a team we would almost certainly buy season tickets of some kind and cheer on our new team. After all Nick Johnson plays for the Expos and he was the Yankee's first baseman for a few years. No I have no idea what I would do if somehow the new Washington team met up with the Yanks. But for now I would simply savor the possibility.

I think part of why this is so exciting is that I am finally becoming more of a Washingtonian. There is a definite part of one's identity that is related to where you are from or where you live. Your accent, your expectations, your pace of life, and the way you drive are all influenced by where you grew up and where you live now. It was very hard for me at first to leave NY. I had lived there all of my life except for 4 years in college in Michigan (let me tell you, the midwest, when you're a dyed in the wool New Yorker, is not the place to be) and I wasn't sure what to expect. I have been pleasantly suprised. This area is incredible for cultural activities, festivals, and events and much of it is free. Our neighborhood is incredibly diverse. Within two blocks there are families of many colors, national origins and backgrounds. I love that and am very excited that my kids might see the world very differently than I did growing up in an all white area. The pace is slightly slower than NY but nice none the less. The people are great. I love that grocery stores help you pack your bags, people help you out when they see you in trouble and people look out for one another's kids. I've met many friends here. Our town is in the final stages of redeveloping its downtown area and the new square, with its kid pleasing water fountain, is surrounded by restaurants, a movie theater, and stores of all kinds. When I go downtown I almost always run into someone I know. I feel like we live in a fairly small town all while being able to enjoy the bigger city of DC. Now of course to my husband and I, DC isn't really a city like NY is, but as an alternative, I am fairly happy with it. Our county is VERY liberal leaning. I always felt so left of center living on Long Island but here I feel positively mainstream. It is nice for a change. I guess what I'm saying is I am really starting to like living here. Having our own baseball team would just cement the deal.

Identity lesson for today: I am a transplanted New Yorker. But I am transplanted and starting to flourish in my new home. Who knows whether some day I'll actually say I'm a Washingtonian. Now, play ball!