Re: The lack of recent activity

Just got back yesterday from a week at the beach with the girlfriend and another couple we've known since college. The couple currently lives in Pittsburgh, having moved there after meeting at college. She is from north-central West Virginia, he from north of Baltimore. This is relevant.

As a couple composed of one person (she) from a small town whose nearest major city is Pittsburgh, and one person (he) with no compelling interest in professional sports, they obviously have gravitated toward the pro sports teams from the Steel City...at least the successful ones.

This post isn't to begrudge them their fandom (though, curiously, she didn't seem too interested in the Penguins while we were in school from 2001 to 2005, and his Steelers support must kill his Ravens-loving parents inside). They made some jokes about Geno and his parents, I asked when Crosby would move out of Lemieux's basement, she called him "Fleury" whenever he let in a goal in Wii laser hockey...all was well.

Rather, what struck me was the prevalence of Pittsburgh imagery and memorabilia in the city itself. That it took the girlfriend and I half as long coming from the Washington suburbs than our friends from Pittsburgh to get to Rehoboth Beach was not lost on us. Nonetheless, the Penguins and Steelers were basically the only sports teams you could find on shirts, hats, posters, etc. in the various tchotchke shops along the boardwalk and main drag (there was a smattering of Eagles and Phillies stuff too). The same with the other fine vacationers spending their time in the city- plenty of people wearing Steelers and Penguins logos and sporting Stillers bumper stickers (as well as other non-sports related Pittsburgh stuff), but nary a Capitals* or Redskins logo to be seen.

We surmised the reason for the Pittsburgh dominance. Is Rehoboth Beach really that much of a major destination for Pittsburghians? There are certainly several other major sports cities much closer to the Delaware Shore than south-west Pennsylvania.

And there definitely were people wearing Phillies and Flyers shirts, so perhaps it was just that the Pittsburgh images stood out more to me as an individual.

The conclusion we arrived at was not that there was a massive influx of Yinzers to Rehoboth Beach, but rather a combination of 1) said Pittsburgh residents being extremely overt about their city and sports allegiances, and 2) a desire on the part of retailers in the city to capitalize on bandwagon interest and popularity. And to be fair, I did see a few Colts Super Bowl XLI Champions hats tucked away in the corner of one of the sports memorabilia shops, which lends a great deal of credence to that theory.

There isn't really a specific argument to this post; it's more of an inquiry into why there was so much black and gold kicking around on the Delaware shores this week. Perhaps its all bandwagon, perhaps not. If a plethora of Penguins logos was the worst part of my vacation, well then, really what am I complaining about?

*Okay, I saw one weird photo-painting montage of several Caps players in an "art" gallery off Rehoboth Ave, but to be fair they had similar montages of every Pittsburgh and Philadelphia team, as well as several composite images of the Mona Lisa holding dogs, so I'm going to say that doesn't count.