I want to tell you a story about my friend Dan. I’ve known Dan for about sixteen years now, and on many a night, he has been my drinking comrade. Dan is a great guy, no question. He has a Michigan toughness to him, like a Chevy or a Ford. But Dan and I have one major and long-disputed rub: He’s a fair-weather fan.

Dan himself does not dispute this. His favorite football team is the Tennessee Titans, despite the fact that he’s never lived in, nor even visited, Tennessee. Recently he started sporting Georgia apparel, because he’s dating a girl who went to Georgia. Those loyalties, to me, are simply beyond any credibility.

But about six months ago, back at the beginning of the baseball season, back before the olde English “D” became popular among hoodrats nationwide, Dan crossed the line. He crossed the line. We were out drinking, as usual, when I noticed that Dan was wearing a Yankees hat.

Well known is my hatred for the Yankees. But a guy from Flint… wearing a Yankees hat. There’s something vile about the whole scenario. But there it was, sitting on his head. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t just sit there and say nothing. So I objected, in the way good friends do, by calling Dan an asshole and a traitor. Thus was sparked the bitter debate that now rages among the Chicago contingent of Joe’s Friends.

I want to tell you this story not to make fun of Dan — although that’s fine — but because this is an opportunity to explain why my baseball cap is the greatest baseball cap of all time. And in so doing, I hope to illustrate a point about the ultimate of all virtues, loyalty.

I bought my hat in 2000, at the gift shop in Comerica Park. I bought it on April 12, on the occassion of the second game ever played in the gigantic new stadium. (I couldn’t afford a ticket to the park’s dedication game, so I had to settle for Game 2.) My new hat replaced my old one, which in its decade-long duty of faithful service had grown too small for my head. But like the old hat, this one was a keeper: A fitted, relaxed-front, dark blue cotton beauty, with an olde English “D” stitched gracefully onto its face.

In the six years since, my hat has been to about fifty baseball games, but a vast minority of those have been Tigers games. My hat appeared several dozen times at Wrigley Field, where the Tigers weren’t even playing. It has been to Miller Park, Comiskey Park, Fenway Park, Coors Field and Yankee Stadium. Most of the time, the Tigers were a thousand miles away, playing another game. But I wore my hat anyway. My hat has been to countless bars, parties and places; most of the time, I wasn’t even watching baseball.

My hat is faded blue now, and torn, and stained here and there from six years of brutal wear. The stitching on the “D” is starting to come loose a little. Sweat stains mark the corners. But despite its shabby appearance, my hat remains the greatest hat of all time, for one simple reason:

I wore it this morning.

Last night, the Tigers lost the World Series. They fell in four games to the St. Louis Cardinals, who earned their victory and deserve their party. Costly and stupid errors by the Tigers ended a season of unexpected brilliance, and a playoff record of solid dominance. But for the Tigers, a World Series championship in 2006 was not meant to be. A long, hard, beautiful season came to a heartbreaking end last night for the baseball team from Detroit.

So this morning, I did something that Dan would never do: I wore my Tigers hat. In the coming days, it will be rested from the rotation, and replaced by my Lions hat, and later my Pistons hat, and then my Red Wings hat. Next Spring, I will take my Tigers hat — the flagship of my beautiful fleet — and I will dust it off and wear it again. But I will remember, when I do that, the most important fact: I wore it this morning.

I wore my hat through the summer of 2003, when the Tigers lost 119 games and were the worst team in baseball. And I will wear my Lions hat tomorrow, celebrating, defiantly, the worst team in football.

Because this isn’t about the Tigers, or the Lions, or baseball, or football, or even about sports at all. This is about loyalty, the mysterious and disappearing virtue that has become the battlefield for my debate with Dan and the fair-weather fans of his ilk. It’s as simple as this: My Tigers hat is popular in 2006, when I wore it proudly. But it wasn’t popular in 2003, when I wore it proudly anyway.

Am I a sports fan? Yes. But this isn’t about sports. It’s about blind, dumb allegiance to your people, even through the worst of times. Rooting for the Tigers a few years ago was stupid. They were horrible. And rooting for the Lions today is very much the same; it’s just a dumb bet.

I should wear a Steelers hat, or a Colts hat. Or I could pull a Dan and just pick a team at random, because my Lions suck so badly. But here’s the thing: I wear my Lions hat anyway, not because they’re winners, or because they’re losers, but because they’re my team.

I wore my Tigers hat in 2006, and it was great. Beating the Yankees, winning the American League penant, what a fantastic ride. But that’s not the important thing; what matters far more is that I wore that hat in 2003. And I wore it this morning. That is what matters.

It’s human to love a winner. That’s why Dan owns a Yankees hat. But it’s superhuman to love something so blindly that you’re there even in the cold darkness of failure. If the Tigers lost every game, every year, for a hundred years, I would still wear that damned hat. That’s what the game is about; not just sports, but everything. That’s what it all boils down to. I will be there not just in the sunshine glow of success, but in the thick of night, when all the lights go out and all hope has failed. Blind, dumb loyalty is love of the purest kind.

Which is why Dan and I are still friends. Loyalty is not for sale. It cannot be compromised, not even for a moment. Not even when a fellow Michigander wears a Yankees hat.

Go Tigers. Go Lions. Go Pistons, and Redwings. Go Blue. And know this, all of you: Should you lose every game, should you blow every World Series, should you fail again and again and again, and again, I will still be your fan.

Congratulations, Detroit Tigers of 2006. But more importantly, congratulations, Detroit Tigers of 2003. Well done, both of you.

And now, my haiku to celebrate you:

I love the Tigers,
Because they are so awesome,
And fuck the Yankees.