Washington was a baseball town until Bob Shorted the Expansion Nats to Texas. We had been stunned when Calvin Griffith betrayed Clark's memory and Addy for that move to Minneapolis, but the Skins were worse, other than 1969, until wiley George Allen took over in 1971. The teams of Toot (Otto Graham's nickname) always went 6 - 8, while Sonny threw hundreds of completions a season, and thousands of yards, to Mitchell, Taylor, and Smith. When Short announced he was taking the Senators, Allen announced that his Redskins would go to the playoffs to avenge the insult to the Nation's Capital. Everyone thought he was crazy, but the Skins went 9 - 4 - 1 and were the wildcard team.
With that, Washington became 200% a Redskin team. People cared about even the third-string QB -- yes, I remember Harry Theofiledes, plus second stringers like Dick Shiner. "I'm a Redskin fan and I like..." However, the Post's sports coverage was always gentle and supportive, other than Shirley Povich's long, long battle against George Preston Marshall's dishonesty and racism.
I have lived in NYC for more than fifty years, following sports in the Times, the Daily News, Newsday for a time, and sometimes I'd read the NY Post about 40 years ago. The Daily News and the NY Post have the worst sports coverage I've ever read. It has always been gossip journalism and personal interest stories. Dick Young, at the request of the Whitney Payson family, drove Tom Seaver out of town; Seaver had asked for a raise or that the Mets get some hitters -- they had just dumped Rusty Staub This offended the Whitney Paysons, so they had Young write that Seaver wanted a raise because Nancy Seaver was jealous of the jewlery that Nolan Ryan's wife had from Ryan's salary.
Washington does not do that sort of thing, and it's OK.
I don't know if DC ever had the sort of drunken college-boy sports talk like Mike and the Mad Dog...the cal from Billy in Ronkonkoma that begins, "Dog!! Why don't the Mets trade [names five players] to Boston for [names Freddie Lynn and Jim Rice plus somebody else]?" That doesn't indicate less interest. Maybe fewer nuts with time on their hands.
