Although the Jimmy Fallon character in “Fever Pitch” was a caricature of the die hard Red Sox Nation citizen — his team loyalty vying with his love interest for his time and heart — a weekend I recently spent in Washington, D.C., gave me to believe his zealotry may have been only slightly exaggerated.

Tired of the endless dreary weather we had been having in Boston this summer, my wife, son and I recently went to sunny D.C. to watch the Nationals play two games against the Red Sox. We did this, in part, because it is so difficult to get seats to games at Fenway.  We weren’t the only ones.

Typical attendance at a Nationals game is 20,000 or so, but attendance at each of the three Red Sox games set records of 41,000 plus. By joining in these record-breaking crowds, we came to know what it is to be official citizens of Red Sox Nation.

There is an ‘official’ Red Sox Nation you can join for $14.95 to get merchandise and newsletters, but you can’t truly appreciate the fanaticism of the RSN citizen until you have joined thousands of Boston-area vacationers in seizing spiritual control of another team’s stadium, hundreds of miles from home, the way we did that week.

What is it about being there in person that makes this a true initiation for a Red Sox Nation citizen?

1. Sitting in another team’s stadium and joining in a “Let’s Go Red Sox (clap, clap, clap-clap-clap)” chant that completely fills the place, drowning out the boos and heckles from the home town fans.
2. Singing “Sweet Caroline” with some 20,000 other Red Sox fans in the middle of the eighth inning somewhere other than Fenway Park.
3. Hearing “Youuuu, “Youuuu” being chanted for Kevin Youklis when he comes to bat and hearing some Washington fans go “Boooo,” thinking that’s what’s actually being chanted.
4. Teasingly worded T-shirts, like: “Red Sox Nation: Happily filling your ballparks since 1986.”
5. Seeing someone in the left center field stands of the ballpark holding up a large Citgo sign (i.e., mimicking the actual Citgo sign behind Fenway’s Green Monster and demonstrating to the Washington fans that their park has for all intents and purposes been transformed into an alternate Fenway reality for the duration of the series.)

I know other teams’ fans also travel to watch road games, but one can’t help get the sense that it’s not for nothing that “Red Sox Nation” has become part of our national sports lexicon, while teams like the Yankees are clearly without countries of their own.

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