The Beginning
On August 26, 2010 two crazy guys went to a baseball game. On their heads, they wore fleece hoods made to resemble sharks with felt teeth and buttons for eyes originally used in a children's play. They designed a picture in MS paint of a man inside a shark and glued it to a piece of poster board. At the game, they cheered relentlessly for a baseball player named Roger, who hit a game tying home run in the bottom of the ninth. Sharkadina was born.
​After we wore our signature fleece Shark hoods for the first time, we took to the internet to spread the word of Bernadina's new nickname. We updated his Wikipedia page, his baseball reference page, and even urban dictionary (warning: some other definitions of "Shark" are not suitable for children). Eventually, he (or his agent?) updated his personal website to include "The Shark" in the header. We still don't know who did it, but it was our first big break.
Our second big break came when the fan blog Nationals Inquisition noticed all of this and wrote about the name. We sent them an email and the follow up post is a pretty funny description of that first game.
"Tyler and Terry, not a couple, but a couple of diehard Nats fans who seem to have the honor that few fans get to have: actually nicknaming a player and having that player embrace the nickname until the end of time....GOD, I LOVE DEDICATION LIKE THIS! These are my favorite type of Nats fans and the team certainly needs more like them."
-Nats NQ, February 5, 2010