If you leave this forum I will personally find you and kick your ass.
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Er...okay, so threats like that seem kinda stupid, especially in a baseball forum, and especially to prevent someone from leaving.
Look, I know how you feel. I hate it when everyone around me sounds like they're giving up, and the negativity seems overwhelming - it brings ME lower than I'm already feeling about the Nats. But I've realized a few things:
1.) One need not stake one's enthusiasm on the enthusiasm of others.
2.) People express their fandom in all sorts of different ways. For example, kenzafan often comes across as waaay too downbeat for my tastes - sometimes it seems like he'd gladly send 3/4 of the roster + FO to a firing squad given the chance - but I wouldn't for a second question the level of his commitment. He's shaped both by his general personality AND his experience of following the Expos and their luckless ways for (I would surmise) decades. You can disagree with him - or me, or anyone else on here - without feeling like you're contravening Accepted Wisdom. We all have different opinions. Fight for your views!
3.) One should NEVER be prohibited from criticizing the team, even if you'd gladly sacrifice several non-essential organs for it. I love the Nats now like I've always loved the Maryland Terrapins, but I have no problem criticizing either team. No question about it: our team has a LOT of very noticeable flaws, and if we manage to stitch together a run to get ourselves into the postseason it's very much going to be a spit-and-chewing-gum sort of operation. We need better hitting, we need to fill at least one more starting slot in the rotation, new management, a new GM, etc.
But unlike, say, the Pittsburgh Pirates or the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, we have so much reason for hope and enthusiasm. We're going to be getting an owner, a REAL payroll, we're in a town that has the potential to become one of the major baseball markets (PETER YOU CAN KISS MY PATOOTIE), we have most of the more difficult-to-fix pieces in place with a great catcher, bullpen, closer, and starting rotation...there is literally absolutely no reason not to expect this team, with a little retooling in the off-season, to be a serious contender next year....REGARDLESS of whether we make it this year.
I won't speak for anyone else, but I find your enthusiasm, especially in the face of some bad times for Nats Nation, to be endearing and and even encouraging. I LIKE the idea of a fan who will back this team through thick and thin. I think intelligent criticism (as opposed to relentless defeatism) is absolutely necessary - nobody has ever benefitted from turning a blind eye to their weaknesses - but so is a healthy dose of the good ol' RAH-RAH. Even if/when the Nats are mathematically eliminated from playoff contention, I'm not going to stop cheering for them. (After all, a lifetime of Washington sports has inured me to the sickly stench of failure...this is the town of The Curse O'Les Boulez, the Choking Dog Capitals, the Bob Wade-era Terps disgrace, the '90s Deadskins...and the perennial 4th-placers up I-95.)
So stick around, ya goofball!
