District Ink, Tattoo Me

From Kent Barnes. Follow him on Twitter @KentBarnes, email him at kent[AT]borderstan.com. You’re a huge sports fan. More specifically, you’re a huge DC sports fan. You’re ready to show the world just how passionate you are about your favorite local team. So what do you do? You could buy a jersey, but whatever player you choose won’t be playing forever. You could buy season tickets and dress up for the game, but that’s expensive and you run the risk of looking like this guy. If you’re as hardcore about your team as you say you are, there’s only one choice. A tattoo. What follows is the good, the bad, and the truly ugly of DC sports tattoos.

The Nationals

• The Good – When in doubt, stick with the Curly W. The Nats don’t have a long storied history like many of the other baseball teams, but they do have a nice classic looking logo. Keep it clean and simple.
• The Bad – Messing with the Curly W. The only way to ruin a nice logo is to add stuff to it. Especially when that stuff is a microphone and some poorly written text.
• The Ugly – Teddy. Okay so this isn’t actually a Nats tattoo, but it should serve as a warning to anyone who wants to immortalize our 26th president on their skin. We’re all big Teddy fans when we’re at the stadium, but if you want to celebrate Teddy stick with the t-shirt.

The Redskins

• The Good – A tribute to a fallen player. You can never go wrong with a nice tribute to a life taken too soon (in this case Sean Taylor). Portraits can be tough, so you may want to stick with a jersey number.
• The Bad – The Native American. If you haven’t been living under a rock for the last six months, you probably know that there is a growing movement to get the Redskins to change their name. This is a particularly offensive example, but either way you’re better off steering clear of anything that may be looked at as disrespectful.
• The Ugly –Too Much. Taken individually, none of these tattoos are THAT bad. But in this case, there is definitely too much of a (not so) good thing.

The Capitals

• The Good – The logo. Like the Nationals, the Caps have a nice, clean, classic looking logo. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
• The Bad – The Goalie. Human figures are notoriously difficult to tattoo. Throw in a jersey, padding, a mask, and a stick, and that’s a lot to get right. Don’t even try it.
• The Ugly – Possibly Tattoo’ed by a 4^th Grader. In addition to having way too much going on, the stars and numbers are pretty uneven. The idea is ok, but the execution just isn’t there.

The Wizards

• The Ugly – The Wizard. This was one of the only Wizards tattoos I could find, which leads me to believe that anyone else thinking about getting a Wizards tattoo saw this and thought better of it. Let’s hold off on the Wizards ink for now.

Ready to get your DC sports tattoo? Head to one of these local shops:

• Fatty’s Custom Tattooz – 1333 Connecticut Avenue NW
• Tattoo Paradise – 2444 18th Street NW
• Jinx Proof – 3285 M Street NW
• DC Ink – 1350 U Street NW

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