Diaspora

David Brooks contemplates switching baseball allegiance. This is a serious matter.

I've lived in the Delaware Valley for nearly 20 years. Fairly soon after moving here, I transferred the tepid, mainly geographic loyalty I had to the football, basketball and hockey teams of my childhood. This happened gradually, almost unconsciously. I remember being surprised to realize I felt disappointed after seeing the Giants beat the Eagles. It was, I realized, official. I was assimilating.

But baseball is different. I am a Mets fan, like my father before me, and I will die a Mets fan.

It was a bit of a surprise to learn that Brooks, a conservative Republican, is also a Mets fan. My hypothesis allows for this, but it bucks the trend. Brooks' devotion seems genuine. He writes: "The Yankee ideal is: All cower before the greatness that is Rome." That contempt for Yankee imperialism is the true mark of a Mets fan.

I'm very glad that a big league team plays its home games 20 minutes from here. I attend their games whenever I can. And from my seat at Citizen's Park I will root, root, root for the home team — unless, of course, they happen to be playing against their divisional rivals, the Mets. Should there ever come a day when the Mets and Phillies are embroiled in a September playoff race, then I will — politely, as a guest — reserve the right to root against the Phillies every day.

So, Mr. Brooks, I appreciate your dilemma. You live in Washington now, and Washington has its own baseball team. The Nats have an underdog appeal that we Mets' fans can respect — their adoptive inheritance of the Senators' history of futility parallels the Mets' own status as heirs of the Brooklyn Dodgers. You should go to games — get season tickets, if you can, and root for the home team. Especially when they're playing Atlanta.

Just not when they're playing the Mets.

You write: "I have immigrated to Washington, and we immigrants are obliged to set nostalgia aside and assimilate to our new civilization." But when it comes to baseball, you're not really an immigrant, you're an expatriate. We baseball expats have a duty to remain loyal to the countries of our birth.

Especially since, you know, this could be the year …