Rant alert.
That riveting Stanley Cup run is well behind us, and the allegiance fervor–and ticket subplots– that accompanied it have faded. But at some point, because we are a hybrid market comprised in large part by folks from somewhere else, this rooting-interest issue will reappear after another special season by the Bolts, Bucs or Rays.
Remember 2008? Rays vs. Philadelphia Phillies in the World Series. Or the 2004 NHL Eastern Conference finals between the Lightning and the Philadelphia Flyers? More than most, I do.
As a Philly native–the city not the suburbs–I got inquiries about my allegiance. From up there as well as down here. Could I actually root against my hometown? My family? My roots? My DNA?
Was I torn? What kind of dilemma was this?
My answer, in short: “Dilemma? Yo. No way. I live here. By choice. Not accident of birth. Not by inertia. You have to be born somewhere. Go, Rays. Go, Bolts.” It went over better down here than up there.
The bottom line: This is my community; this is my home. That trumps all. I never got the so-called DNA part. Maybe I’m the mutant.
Even though my father played Army baseball with members of the “Whiz Kids” Phillies. Even though a Phillies’ starting shortstop, Granville “Granny” Hamner, lived three blocks away in our row house neighborhood of Northeast Philly. Even though I once introduced my mother to her favorite Phillie, Richie Ashburn, over at the club’s Clearwater training facility after a spring exhibition game.
Following the Phillies–or Eagles or Flyers–was part of growing up. Like loving Tastykakes, ordering a Ballantine beer, appearing on Bandstand or identifying with “Rocky.” More like nostalgia.
I’m glad I experienced it. The memories are meaningful. But then you grow up and create new life experiences, new realities.
One is the community you become part of if you don’t stay put. Here in this Tampa Bay market–and this town of Tampa–we don’t cheer out of tradition and habit. It’s all too new, and we’re a diverse lot from so many other places.
We don’t cheer because we lead vicarious lives through the feats of Stammer or the Triplets. In Tampa, more so than most places, a sports franchise is a vehicle for community identity and unity. At its best–and this one’s first-class–it’s part of the community fabric.
We know who we’re not, and we prefer it that way. We know the networks wanted New York and Chicago in the Stanley Cup Finals. We know respect is begrudgingly earned. We also know most markets would not draw 17,000 locals to an arena where the only action was on a TV screen.
Because we are mostly from somewhere else, these transformative games become our societal cement, our rallying points, our branding opportunities.
How do you live here and not root for the locals? Would that that were a rhetorical question.
But it’s not–as we’ve seen and heard and read about some Blackhawks fans in our midst. Not the out-of-town visitors staying in our hotels, eating in our restaurants and ambling along our Riverwalk, but the relocatee DNA crowd in those red sweaters.
I don’t get it. Never will.
Put it this way. If Phil Esposito, who actually PLAYED for the Chicago Blackhawks, can root passionately for the Lightning, so can all those Windy City ex-pats living down here.