Tag: Washington Nationals

Nats Win! Washington Baseball for New Generations. It’s 1924 Again

Nats Win! Washington Baseball for New Generations. It’s 1924 Again

The great­est thing about the 2019 Nats is that base­ball is again span­ning the gen­er­a­tions in Washington.

Think about it. New York, Philadel­phia, Boston, Chica­go ben­e­fit from six gen­er­a­tions of unin­ter­rupt­ed base­ball. Pitts­burgh, St. Louis, Cleve­land, Detroit—the list goes on. Atlanta, Los Ange­les and Hous­ton have had half a cen­tu­ry or more to build a fol­low­ing: fathers and sons, par­ents and kids. Alas, Wash­ing­ton was with­out base­ball thir­ty-four years. In 1971, the expan­sion Sen­a­tors left for Texas; in 2005, the Mon­tre­al Expos became the Nation­als. A beau­ti­ful ball­park revived a decrepit area of the city, which now resem­bles Wrigleyville in Chicago.…

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God is a Nats Fan: A Kid from New York Remembers

God is a Nats Fan: A Kid from New York Remembers

“God is a Nats Fan” first appeared in The Amer­i­can Spec­ta­tor on 21 Octo­ber 2019. Scroll down to the com­ments for emails with fel­low fanat­ics as the 2019 World Series unfolds.

Yankee Stadium, 1958

When Wash­ing­ton was in town, the drill was always the same: 15¢ for a bus to the Stat­en Island Fer­ry. A nick­el fer­ry ride and 15¢ more for the BMT to Wood­lawn and Jerome Avenues. As the sub­way erupt­ed into sun­light from the bow­els of the Bronx, this kid wear­ing his navy blue hat with its white “W” would con­front the Citadel of Base­ball, proud and aus­tere with its eagle logos, bristling with pen­nants.…

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Desert Island Books: Charles Krauthammer’s “Things that Matter”

Desert Island Books: Charles Krauthammer’s “Things that Matter”

Charles Krauthammer’s Things That Mat­ter: Three Decades of Pas­sions, Pas­times and Pol­i­tics (388 pages, Crown Forum, 2013). In remem­ber­ing Dr. Krautham­mer, I said this book was one of a score I’d take with me if con­fined to a desert island. Here’s why. 

The read­er will ask: why am I plug­ging to a Churchill audi­ence a set of essays by a polit­i­cal colum­nist? Answer: because many are not polit­i­cal, yet reflect Churchillian thought. More­over, Dr. Krauthammer’s essay about Churchill is one of the best sum­maries of the man I’ve ever read. By any­body. Anywhere.

Sig­nif­i­cant­ly, in a book of over near­ly nine­ty columns and essays, the Churchill arti­cle ranks second—in Part I (enti­tled “Personal”)—after a piece on the author’s beloved broth­er, Mar­cel, who also died young after an hero­ic strug­gle.…

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“If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster”: Charles Krauthammer 1950-2018

“If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster”: Charles Krauthammer 1950-2018

“CK,” Churchillian

The best edi­tor I ever had wrote: “There is noth­ing to be said when a friend dies, even among peo­ple whose trade is words.” Much nev­er­the­less is being said about Charles Krautham­mer. That is fit­ting, and it is what we have the Inter­net for. (Some of the most touch­ing trib­utes are linked below. Fox News pro­duced a very fine trib­ute, “Krautham­mer in His Own Words” click here.)

My edi­tor meant, rather, that for some, words are inad­e­quate against “a big, emp­ty hole where there was once some­one you loved. And all the talk in the world won’t change that.…

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Baseball 2018: But Some of Us Still Remember When….

Baseball 2018: But Some of Us Still Remember When….

“Remem­ber When” was first pub­lished in The Amer­i­can Spec­ta­tor, 18 April 2018.

On the first day of April, a spoof flashed around social media. In hon­or of East­er, all thir­ty Major League Base­ball teams would be wear­ing jer­seys in East­er egg pas­tel col­ors. April Fool! The day dawned, and the teams all wore their nor­mal uni­forms. The cul­prit, Chris Cream­er of SportsLogos.net, said it was all in fun.

Chris’s joke gained cre­dence thanks to MLB’s habit of com­mem­o­rat­ing every­thing from pet dogs to “our troops.” (“Pups in the Park,” who’s gonna clean up that mess?…

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Washington Nationals: Wait Till Next Year

Washington Nationals: Wait Till Next Year

Long-suf­fer­ing Nats fans hoped 2014 would be The Year.

After play­ing door­mat to the Nation­al League East for ages; after blow­ing a sure Divi­sion Series in 2012, we all expect­ed our Wash­ing­ton Nation­als to put a stamp on the 90th anniver­sary of 1924—the last year Wash­ing­ton won the World Series.

Instead we lost the NL Divi­sion Series to a wild card team that had won only 88 games in the sea­son. We lost three games out of four, all by one run—games that could have gone either way. But the San Fran­cis­co Giants are pros, vet­er­ans of the play­off sea­son.…

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Ryan Zimmerman and the Curse of the Goose

Ryan Zimmerman and the Curse of the Goose

On June 23rd Wash­ing­ton Nation­als star third base­man Ryan Zim­mer­man went out with a ham­string injury that may side­line him for the rest of the sea­son. The effect on the team’s play was aston­ish­ing. At the close of play on August 1st the com­pa­ra­ble W-L sta­tis­tics were:

With­out Zim (first time): 21-24, .467 (equates to 76-84)
With Zim: 34-19, .642 (equates to 104-58)
With­out Zim (since 7/23): 3-6 .333 (equates to 53-109)

Mark Zuck­er­man of Nats Insid­er wrote on July 23 that from June 30th when they all came togeth­er, the Nation­als were the Nation­al League’s most pro­duc­tive team.…

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Baseball: The Amazin’ Nats

Baseball: The Amazin’ Nats

In 2012’s great­est base­ball suc­cess sto­ry, the Wash­ing­ton Nation­als went 60-40 on July 28th, hav­ing won more games as they won all year in 2008 and 2009. In the Nation­al League they’re first in pitch­ing, tied for sec­ond in field­ing, and sev­enth in hit­ting, although in the last month their bat­ters have been on fire.

Tied with the Yan­kees for the best record in base­ball, the prece­dents fall week­ly. 2012 is sup­plant­i­ng 2005 as the best year since base­ball returned to Wash­ing­ton. The Nats are now about five games bet­ter than they were at this time in 2005, when they dove from first to last place in the sec­ond half.…

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Baseball: Pitch Counts & Match-ups

Baseball: Pitch Counts & Match-ups

I watched last night’s Wash­ing­ton Nation­als-Boston Red Sox game with a Red Sox fan named Hank, whose reac­tions may be of inter­est to base­ball fans in gen­er­al, as a sug­ges­tion of how the game is man­aged by some folks these days.

Top sec­ond, Nats 1, Sox 0

Hank: “Your team looks pret­ty good. I think they’ll win.”

RL: “Just wait.”

Bot­tom fourth, Nats 2, Sox 2

Hank: “Bases loaded, one out. Lan­nan the pitcher’s up next. You need runs now. Her­nan­dez is fast and the infield’s back—why not squeeze?”

RL: “Our man­agern­ev­er squeezes. Doesn’t teach bunting.”

Hank: “Hit and run then?”…

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