When I reappeared at this message board a few weeks ago, I know I surprised some fans. In the past, I've mostly posted at this other Nats message board and kept away from here. There wasn't anything I disliked about this board---I just liked the other one. But something recently happened and I want to discuss it briefly, but AWAY from all the talk about what the Nats might do in the postseason.
The night the Nats clinched the NL East, I made a terrible mistake although I didn't realize it at the time, and couldn't have realized in advance. After the game was over, I posted something along the lines of "Wow! Watching the Nats clinch a division title in their stadium could drive some Braves fans to drink! Hopefully someone will get a designated driver---wouldn't want them to drive off a cliff!" One of the long-time posters went ballistic on me for my comments. I was puzzled, but immediately apologized. That poster apologized and then said that they were going through some personal issues since a relative died.
A light bulb suddenly flashed in my brain. This poster had mentioned this before, but I had assumed that the person in question had died a natural death. Now I figured out that that wasn't the case. I apologized again, and posted my e-mail. That poster contacted me and confirmed my suspicions---that their loved one died in the way I had joked about on the message board.
(Just for the record, in real life, I didn't make a joke about drunk driving, but I'm not taking the chance that that person might have recently joined this forum. If that's the case, I don't want to trigger any new trauma.)
That should have been the end of it, but the poster told me that they were going to stay away from the board because the other people were making that person feel unwelcome. I couldn't believe it, so I went back to the thread and discovered that these other idiots had jumped on the poster in my "defense." I was furious, and I put my foot down. I posted that even though I didn't mean offense, what I posted was wrong and that they shouldn't have attacked the poster. If they had only bothered to read what the poster had written, they would know why that poster was upset. Finally, if they were going to scare off the best person---bar none---to post on that board, I wanted no part of it. So I left.
I'd like to think that if they knew the truth, they would have immediately did a 180 and posted an apology. But I didn't want to cause more hurt nor reveal confidential information that the poster was unwilling to do so publicly. There are other message boards where you are allowed to send private messages to people. I think this is one of them, but the other one isn't. So they just think that poster is being silly and I'm being a stuck-in-the-mud.
That's about it. If the moderator thinks this message shouldn't be here, I understand if it gets deleted. But I learned the lesson the hard way not to get too carried away with Nats' victories.
