The Tigers were in town last weekend for a three-game set, and proceeded to sweep up the pathetic Mariners.
Right before I moved to Seattle in 2004, my former employer gave me a sweet going-away present: a package of tickets to 16 Mariners games. One of those games was against the Tigers, and I was curious about where my loyalties would lie. I grew up with the Tigers but it had been over a decade since I lived in Detroit and the team had not exactly been giving anyone cause to remain a die-hard long-distance fan. The Mariners were now my adopted home team, though they, too, hadn’t been tearing up the American League standings.
After the first inning, I fell right back to rooting for the Tigers. Even today, I find myself checking the Tigers’ box score before the Mariners’, and I feel more of a sense of loss if they are defeated than if Seattle goes down.
I mentioned this phenomenon to some colleagues the other day. One of them said he had heard that childhood sports team loyalties are the hardest to shake. A child may shed his parents’ politics or religious beliefs, but rarely do kids ever lose the team loyalty they shared with their folks.
Go Tigers!
