What If…
Last night I had the pleasure of watching the Super Bowl with several hundred screaming Steelers fans in Shootz Cafe on Carson Street in Pittsburgh. Carson Street is something like Adams Morgan, full of entertainment establishments, tattoo parlors, and restaurants. As the fourth quarter drew to a close, and the Steelers fifth Super Bowl victory became official, crowds streamed out onto Carson Street in the South Side, along Forbes in Oakland and on Penn Ave in the Strip District. Only 34 people were arrested and a lonely Dodge Neon was upended. Riots were largely nonexistent, just a lot of raucus partying and waving of towels.
What would happen if the Wizards or the Caps won? Would pandemonium rain down on Chinatown? In Adams Morgan or on U St.? If it was the Redskins, would the whole city erupt?
…and baseball. What would happen if the Nationals won?
Where do you people think you are … College Park?
I remember back in my Chinatown apartment days in the 90’s when one of those MCI Center teams lost some big game and the crowd turned G st. between 5th and 6th into a warzone. They busted out all the ground floor windows they could find and wrecked the GAO office day-care playground. And then they sacked the interior of the 5th and G Burger King – it was closed for a week. The jerks.
If the Caps won, there might be celebrations around MCI (if it were a home) and at Bugsy’s in Old Town, but probably not anywhere else. If Les Boulez won it all there would be more celebrations, but probably not too many. If the Redskins won, the lists of places without celebrations would be shorter than the ones with them.
Richwise, I’m not taking the Nats for granted until all the shenanigans surrounding the stadium and the lease are taken care of. THEN I can think about a world series, but as long as baseball owns the Nats, it won’t ever happen.
I can’t say I have any idea what would happen If the Wizards won. I feel reasonably confident, however, that most celebration of a Caps win would probably be overshadowed by the fire, pestilence and rain of toads.