POOR SPORTS….It’s hard to complain about a game in which the Washington Nationals come back from seven runs down to beat the Yankees. Especially when the Nationals have little pitching to speak of (oh, John Patterson, please come back) and the Yankees have one of the most talented line-ups in baseball, even with two of their stars out on the DL.

And yet. There’s something not quite right about sitting in RFK stadium, rooting on the home team, and realizing that at least half of the fans around you are cheering for the visiting team. I’ve experienced the same thing at NBA and NHL games in Washington (although I’ve heard that Redskins games–after a brief period when games seemed to be infiltrated by large numbers of New York and Philly fans–seem to be getting better).

What is it about Washington sports fans? I offer a few thoughts in the June issue of the Monthly.

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Amy Sullivan is a Chicago-based journalist who has written about religion, politics, and culture as a senior editor for Time, National Journal, and Yahoo. She was an editor at the Washington Monthly from 2004 to 2006.