Honestly, anyone who is upset that a Las Vegas native was wearing Vegas Knights apparel at a Las Vegas Knights Stanley Cup game should bash their head into a brick wa until they drool.
Original point seemed to do with why a fanbase wouldn’t be thrilled with somebody that bolted for a rival, and what was done seemed over the top to plenty, including me. It’s called reading the room — the room which was in Washington, not Las Vegas. It was a Caps home game, one in which they were hosting the Stanley Cup finals for the second time in their history. If you’re gonna have all this chatter about appreciating sports history and baseball history in particular IIRC and you want to position yourself as such, it doesn’t seem smart to then put yourself in a position to appear that apathetic or even antagonistic towards the crossover fan base of your team.
Again, the team whose jersey he instead on sporting conspicuously at a home Caps game didn’t exist prior to that season. The guy didn’t grow up going to Vegas games. People could’ve gotten it somewhat if it was a team he had followed long-term, but even then, you might not wanna be super-conspicuous about it if you care about the response and perspective of your current fanbase.
Let’s say in 2005, the Nats didn’t go 81-81 but made amazing trade deadline deals (e.g. Clemens and Pettitte for Vinny Castilla) and made it to the World Series. Let’s say some superstar on the Chicago Bulls was headed to free agency and showed up decked out in Nats gear to the White Sox World Series games, making sure that got on social media etc.. Basically, he’d be setting himself up to dance on the grave of a team that share the same base with his.
He’d be willing for a focus to be on himself sporting gear of a team he didn’t grow up with and possibly never saw a game of theirs, while much of the same fanbase was rooting for the first title since 1917. I don’t think that would’ve been well received by the media nor the fanbase, and it might’ve sprung to mind now and then if he then went to a rival like the Pistons.
This was after Harper had been part of teams that had some of the most historic playoff collapses in sports history. This was also at a point where some people were reportedly wondering how hard he was willing to push himself pre-contract in a year in which fans thought the window was likely closed were he to leave.
Meanwhile, this occurred while the fanbase was absolutely starved for a title yet had been enduring the historic playoff crashes of both the Caps and Nats, who seems so closely paralleled at the time. It seemed like a bad look added to everything else that was mounting from the perspective of the fanbase.
I barely think of Harper as it is, but when someone seemed to indicate they didn’t know why the Nationals fanbase might not be thrilled with him, this came to mind.