The Sad State of Nationals Baseball

Last night I went to my first baseball game of the year.  We saw the Washington Nationals play the Philadelphia Phillies. It was actually a pretty good game (unexpected because the Phillies have one of the best pitching rotations in MLB history and a pretty good batting lineup, while the Nationals are just plain bad). In the end, the Phillies won 3-2 after the Nationals scored 2 runs in the bottom of the 9th before Roy Halladay struck out the last two hitters on six straight strikes.

On the note of the Phillies being good and the Nats bad...in the starting lineups last night, the Phillies had only one batter hitting below .300.  The Nationals on the other hand had not a single batter hitting over .300, had nobody batting as well as the Phillies worst hitter, and were starting a player batting .071.  Pathetic.

But I'm actually not here to talk about how great the Phillies are (Halladay commands a game like nobody I've seen before, and with such ease), or how bad the Nationals are, but actually to talk about the sad state of the culture of baseball in DC.  Shane Victorino led off for the Phillies last night to start the game and promptly doubled.  The crowd went nuts with cheers.  Let me say that again, the crowd went nuts with cheers.  Now let me remind you that the game was played in DC, home of the Nationals.  When Jason Werth jogged out to right field, he was greeted with a chorus of boos and chants of "Worth-less, Worth-less" from the Phillies faithful, every single inning.  Unfortunately for him, there were far more Phillies fans present than Nats fans. When Roy Halladay walked off the mound at the end of the 8th inning, he received a standing ovation from the visiting crowd.  And every time the Nationals fans tried to make any noise at all they were drowned out by cries of "LET'S GO PHILLIES!"

I know the Nationals aren't a great team, and I was not expecting a sell-out.  However, when there are more fans cheering for the visiting team than there are for the home team, that's just sad.  Noting that, it's no surprise that the Nationals are so bad, after all, who would want to come and play in a city where being at home is actually a disadvantage.

I love baseball. I will go to almost any baseball game because I love watching it, and I can sit and talk baseball all day long.  Thus, I enjoyed the game.  However, being a fan of baseball, it was sad to see that this team had so little support from the home crowd. Baseball is America's past-time.  DC is America's capital.

Having played baseball and watched baseball for years I know that baseball players, like any other athletes, respond to the support and energy of the crowd.  If the crowd is excited and energetic the players get energized and have more fun.  Baseball, more so than any other sport, is performed at a higher level when one is having fun.  It's a long season.  9 innings is a long game.  If you're not having fun you won't play well.  But when you have fun, it is so much easier to play well. So get out there DC folk, support your team, and they may someday reward you with good baseball.

Baseball

To honor Opening Day (yesterday) of the 2011 baseball season, here's what I think is probably the best definition of baseball I've ever heard.  It's from famous Detroit Tigers announcer, the late Ernie Harwell's Hall of Fame Induction speech.

Baseball is the President tossing out the first ball of the season and a scrubby schoolboy playing catch with his dad on a Mississippi farm. A tall, thin old man waving a scorecard from the corner of his dugout. That's baseball. And so is the big, fat guy with a bulbous nose running home one of his 714 home runs.

There's a man in Mobile who remembers that Honus Wagner hit a triple in Pittsburgh forty-six years ago. That's baseball. So is the scout reporting that a sixteen year old pitcher in Cheyenne is a coming Walter Johnson. Baseball is a spirited race of man against man, reflex against reflex. A game of inches. Every skill is measured. Every heroic, every failing is seen and cheered, or booed. And then becomes a statistic.

In baseball democracy shines its clearest. The only race that matters is the race to the bag. The creed is the rulebook. Color merely something to distinguish one team's uniform from another.

Baseball is a rookie. His experience no bigger than the lump in his throat as he begins fulfillment of his dream. It's a veteran too, a tired old man of thirty-five hoping that those aching muscles can pull him through another sweltering August and September. Nicknames are baseball, names like Zeke and Pie and Kiki andHome Run and Cracker and Dizzy and Dazzy.

Baseball is the cool, clear eyes of Rogers Hornsby. The flashing spikes of Ty Cobb, an over aged pixie named Rabbit Maranville.

Baseball is just a game, as simple as a ball and bat, yet as complex as the American spirit it symbolizes. A sport, a business and sometimes almost even a religion.

Why the fairy tale of Willie Mays making a brilliant World's Series catch. And then dashing off to play stick ball in the street with his teenage pals. That's baseball. So is the husky voice of a doomed Lou Gehrigsaying., "I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this earth.”

Baseball is cigar smoke, hot roasted peanuts, The Sporting News, ladies day, "Down in Front", Take Me Out to the Ball Game, and the Star Spangled Banner.

Baseball is a tongue tied kid from Georgia growing up to be an announcer and praising the Lord for showing him the way to Cooperstown. This is a game for America. Still a game for America, this baseball! 

Here's a link to a video where you can hear Ernie give the speech: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cloU58N0YVI&feature=related

Baseball is probably my favorite sport professionally. Going to a baseball game is like almost nothing else in the professional sports world.  If I could have season tickets to any sport, it would be baseball, and YES, I would indeed love to go to 81 baseball games each year.  A baseball game is one of the few places where you can do and relax with friends for 7 innings, cheering when the situation calls for it, and follow the game while enjoying the social aspect, and then tune in for the last couple of innings when things really get exciting.  Some people say that baseball is boring.  How can it be boring when there is so much going on?  I know, I know, "nothing ever happens" people say.  Now maybe it's just the fact that I've played baseball all of my life and am pretty much an extreme stat-nerd, but the way I look at it there is ALWAYS something going on.  To the average fan, the only pitches that matter are the ones that end in strikeouts and home runs. From my view (especially as a former pitcher) EVERY SINGLE PITCH is huge.  A good pitcher uses every pitch purposefully, setting up the rest of the at-bat.  A pitch that is made in the first inning might be done just to set up a different pitch 5 innings later. 

There's so much strategy in baseball, and so much thinking that does (or should) go into every single pitch and every swing and every play in the field, that it can never be boring (at least to a sports nut like me).  For that, and for the fact that everyone from a little kid throwing a plastic ball around, to a grandpa and grandma watching a game, baseball truly is a game that EVERYONE can enjoy.  

So let's say hello to another season of our country's pastime...LET'S PLAY BALL!