As a parent, I have two goals: to keep my kids alive until they’re old enough to walk away from the house for good, and to firmly instill a sense of love and loyalty they will take with them wherever they go.

An Oprah-esque plan for sure, but I found out this past weekend that these two goals can sometimes conflict. Like when you want to strangle your kid to death for one of his devout allegiances.

My oldest son, Archie, is 6 years old. He — like his father and his father before him — roots for the New York Mets. It doesn’t matter that the local team who all his classmates pull for has the best record in baseball. Archie is a Mets fan. It’s his permanent chore. That’s part of our deal. I take out the garbage. He roots for a team his father grew up liking three decades ago that plays its home games 2,500 miles away.

I was feeling left out of last night's thrilling victories and agonizing defeats. Being a Phillies fan (I know, woe is me), this season didn’t stress me out. That tends to happen when you have two Non-Humanoid Hunter Killers anchoring your rotation. Of course, being so calm eventually made me anxious. You have to understand that this kind of sustained success still doesn't feel right for any fan raised on interminable summers watching Von Hayes hit (or miss) at the concrete monument that was Veterans Stadium. But the midseason addition of Hunter Pence to the Phillies lineup and his wide-eyed, all-face-plants-all-the time, swinging-on-the-first-pitch (EVERY TIME) style of play made me anxious. And that made me calm.