On the Sunday after season 7 of the absurdist baseball simulator game Blaseball, Californian singer-songwriter Madden decided to join the fan community of the Chicago Firefighters team, not expecting an especially warm welcome. As soon as they joined the Discord megaserver, which is the size of a small MLB stadium fully packed, messages began streaming in within seconds: “Welcome! You are from Chicago!” “Hello, welcome to Chicago, where you are from!” The chat was captivated with news of blaseball elections, full of fire emojis, and “WAFC” message reacts (the initials to the team chant, “We are from Chicago”). Madden tried to explain that they weren’t a Chicagoan, they came from the Bay Area, only to be told that, technically, that area was considered West Coast Chicago. Eventually, Madden was provided a map.
The infamous map of Chicago.
Courtesy of Ben StrohmanMadden was now amongst thousands of fans cheering for their home team—the Chicago Firefighters—most of whom did not actually make their home there. Yet they rallied, bet, and strategized around their team with the same community pride as other Blaseball teams such as the Breckenridge Jazz Hands, Hawai’i Fridays, and Baltimore Crabs. Months later, Madden now understands the meaning behind the Firefighter’s chant. “What we're saying is not that we're literally from Chicago, but that we have the same claim to this community identity that anybody else does,” Madden says. “We're not just in Chicago, we're not just rooting for Chicago, but we have that same level of pride and belonging in the city.” People want to feel a deep well of civic pride, and Blaseball is helping them get there, even for a place they never visited and never thought to call home.
