There's no bigger Philadelphia stereotype -- besides maybe anything to do with cheesesteaks -- than the quality of Philly sports fans, who have booed everyone from Kobe Bryant to Santa Claus. So if you're the Nationals and Phillies fans are treating your home park like "Citizen Bank Park South," perhaps you're sick of having your crowds dominated.
"They were so obnoxious," one fan, whose father had his shoes thrown up on by a Phillies fan, said.
So what do you do? Well, Nationals COO Andrew Feffer launched a "Take Back the Park" campaign after Phillies fans dominated the Nationals home park for the past few years, frustrating Nationals fans.
Feffer, per Brad Reagan Wall Street Journal, decided that something "had to change" and implemented a ban on single-game ticket sales for the Phillies series this weekend outside of the District of Colombia, Maryland and Virginia.
The Nationals sent e-mails to groups in Philly that put deposits down on 100-plus seats, like the IPS engineering firm in Lafayette, Pa., informing them that the deposit was being returned and they couldn't have the seats.
The ban ended on March 8, but it stands to reason that the majority of good seats are going to be occupied by Nationals fans, with Phillies fans getting less and less crowd space than they would've had before.
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Making matters even worse is that, per Dan Steinberg of the Washington Post's D.C. Sports Bog, Washington mayor Vincent Gray OFFICIALLY declared this "Natitude Weekend" in D.C. How ferocious!
Naturally, this is going over quite well with Phillies fans.
"All they did was poke the hornet's nest," said Kyle Scott of CrossingBroad.com.
Ed Rendell, former mayor of Philadelphia and governor of Pennsylvania, said the Nationals "should be happy anybody goes to their park" and said blocking Phillies fans from buying tickets was "preposterous."
(In case you were wondering, the Phillies lead baseball, averaging more than 45,000 fans a game this season while the Nats are 21st with about 24,000 fans a game.)
Don't worry: Phillies fans, as we've already seen this season with their social-media savvy, are capable of getting around whatever road blocks other teams might be in place. Scott has organized a crew of nearly 200 Phillies fans who are going to set up shop in right field, right behind former Phil Jayson Werth.
No one -- especially Feffer -- should be surprised if they're far from the only group of Phillies fans invading Nationals Park over the weekend.
