Once upon a time, my morning routine consisted of: (1) pouring a large bowl of Frosted Flakes; (2) adding milk; (3) opening to the sports page of the Wheeling Intelligencer; and (4) studying the current MLB standings and box scores while wolfing down the cereal before the flakes became un-frosted and saturated with milk.
Back then, the Houston Astros resided in the National League West. The Seattle Mariners didn’t exist. Nowadays, the two franchises share membership in the American League West. And they’re currently battling for the division title, with (as of Saturday) the Astros leading the Mariners by 0.5 games.
Also on Saturday, the Houston Texans hosted the Carolina Panthers in a preseason game. Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud arrived for the contest with a Mariners hat on his head.
It naturally created a stir for Houstonians who support both the local football and the local baseball team.
Sam Warren of the Houston Chronicle has the details. Here’s the video of Stroud walking in. The Mariners took notice. Texans/Astros fans did, too.
Stroud, who swapped out the baseball hat for a Texans toque when he took the field, also wore the Mariners cap to his post-game press conference. He laughed off a question about his headgear.
“I mean, I love hats,” Stroud said. “Like, I wear hats all the time. I probably have every team. But I support the Astros and the Dodgers because I’m from L.A. It’s kind of contradicting but I still love the Astros. But it’s all good. I understand. It’s all about the swag, baby. I’m just kidding.”
The Astros/Dodgers thing is definitely “contradicting,” given the sign-stealing scandal that put an asterisk on the Astros’ 2017 World Series win over the Dodgers, when Stroud was a 16-year-old student at Rancho Cucamonga High School.
While he can wear whatever hat he wants to wear, there’s a basic “when in Rome” quality that comes from being the starting quarterback for an NFL team. Local fans of the football team are also fans of the other local sports teams. Right or wrong, they expect the players to act accordingly.
Hat flaps are not unprecedented. Twelve years ago, for example, 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick created a stir by wearing a Miami Dolphins hat.
While Stroud didn’t show up wearing a Colts hat or a Titans hat or a Jaguars hat, Houstonians will be naturally sensitive to the sight of a Seattle Mariners hat on the head of the Texans’ starting quarterback. After all, fan is short for fanatic.
And players would be wise to at least factor that broader sense of fanaticism into deciding which hat from the collection should be donned to the stadium for a game. Is it worth inviting avoidable venom from fans who are fanatical about both the local baseball team and the local football team?
Our guess is that, moving forward, Stroud’s Mariners hat will remain on the shelf, unless and until he’s the starting quarterback of the Seahawks.
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