A/N: Sincere thanks to L.M.L. for the beta. This one's for you.

HOME-TEAM LOYALTY

by

Owlcroft

"So how come you're a Dodger fan?" McCormick looked up briefly from Carpenter's 'Foundations of Modern Jurisprudence.'

"Huh?" Hardcastle responded distractedly. "What?" He pushed the volume on the game slightly lower.

"I'd've thought you'd be a Cards fan, or maybe the Cubs. What else is there in the middle part of the country?" Mark wondered to himself. "I mean, didn't you grow up listening to games on KMOX or something?" He closed the book on his thumb again. "The Dodgers were in New York when you were a kid, and you didn't grow up there or here." He jerked his chin toward the window looking west onto the side lawn. "How come the Dodgers?"

The judge shrugged and lowered the volume one more notch. "Well, I did grow up listening to games on the radio. My dad was a big Browns fan, but we didn't get their games, so I kinda started rooting for the Cardinals."

Mark shifted slightly on the couch to face Hardcastle more directly. "So you started watching the Dodgers when you came out here?"

Hardcastle cocked his head and pursed his lips. "Nah, they didn't move out here 'til the late '50s." He thought for a moment. "Guess I started listening to games when they did come out here and then got kinda attached to 'em. If you grow up a baseball fan, you find a team wherever you are, I guess. Though I tell ya what, I still got a soft spot for the Cards." He pressed the mute button on the remote. "You never stop rooting for the team you grew up with. What about you? Yankees, Mets? You were a little kid when the Dodgers and Giants moved out here."

"Yeah, I remember that. But I was still pretty little when they left, and I didn't really get into baseball until a few years later." McCormick stared into the distance. "I think I was a Mets fan because my uncle was. He took me to a couple games at Shea. 'Course, they lost both of them," Mark grinned wryly. He leaned his head back against the couch, then added pensively, "I do still check the Mets scores, ya know."

"Sure ya do. 'Cause they were your team when you were growing up. We all do it." The judge mused briefly. "Guy told me once that he thought it was like a baby bird. The team you grew up with was the one that impressed itself on you and you never stopped rooting for them. I dunno, I guess that's true."

Mark narrowed his eyes and thought. "Well, yeah, but you can start being loyal to other stuff when you grow up. I mean, a guy gets a better job at a different company – he's loyal to that new company, right?"

"Nature versus nurture again, huh? Yeah, there's some truth in that." Hardcastle threw a quick glance at the TV, saw a car commercial, and looked back at the budding law student. "But I think the loyalties you form when you're young are the most solid, the longest-lasting. Like friends from your childhood."

McCormick snorted at that. "I don't think that argument will hold up in court, Your Honor. Your childhood friends tried to kill you and mine turned out to be terrorists and conmen. No," he shook his head, "the grown-up ones are the best. Maybe because you're not a kid when you get attached to something or somebody. Grown-ups know better, they can tell . . ." he grimaced and tried again. "I don't know exactly how to say it, but they're smarter. You know what I mean?"

"Less naïve," replied Hardcastle. "Got a better ability to judge stuff. That about it?" He raised his eyebrows in question.

"Yeah, that's it." Mark settled the book in his lap and opened it again. "They do better at choosing their loyalties."

The judge nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah, you're probably right. Those are the ties that last a lifetime."

McCormick nodded, too. "Yeah." He smiled to himself, then glanced at the TV screen. "Hey, turn that up. They're giving the scores and I want to hear how the Mets did!"

finis