Fans of the Year: Vote one for every team

There’s 4-year-old Nicholas Golnoski, whose range of emotions through an 18-inning Pirates victory on July 17 captured everyone’s attention. He gave us high fives, anger, disbelief, weariness, hope, frustration, triumphant glee and lasting gifs to share.

There’s 104-year-old Mary Weider, known to everyone around Comerica Park in Detroit as “Nona.” She immigrated from Italy and attended her first Tigers game in 1926, listened to the great Ernie Harwell, rooted for Hank Greenberg, Alan Trammell and Miguel Cabrera, and recently threw out a ceremonial first pitch.

They are the youngest and the oldest of 120 special Major League Baseball enthusiasts who have been nominated by their clubs in the inaugural MLB Fans of the Year presented by Esurance. Voting is underway at MLB.com/awards until 2 p.m. ET on Monday, and then 30 winners, one for each club, will be announced for a new award that symbolizes the unique passion and joy all fans of bring to the game.

Without fans, there are no player contracts, no 162-game schedules, no walk-off homers, no ballpark dogs, no no-hitters, no All-Stars, no season tickets, no ballpark cathedrals, no curtain calls, no Draft picks, no rivalries, no mascots, no pennant races, no alternate home jerseys, no World Series, no autographed baseballs, no championship parades, no blockbuster trades, no FanFests, no live streams, no tweets, no rites of passage from one generation to the next.

The time has come to give real bragging rights to the people who make all this happen.

You.

MLB and the 30 clubs worked tirelessly to identify the sport’s top supporters, and four nominees per club have been presented for your vote. They …

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