The Damn Nationals

DC has a new baseball team, the Nationals. Previously the wandering Expos, the team is being embraced by the region. They were the rejected team, having to travel to Puerto Rico for some home games over their last two seasons in Montreal, and they are coming to a long-rejected town, it having been over 30 years since the second franchise calling itself the Senators left town. Many think that such histories makes this a match made in heaven, but not me. If the Expos were a bunch of cast-offs, the Nationals are essentially bullies.

The games will be played in walking distance from where I live. In fact, I already walk there 15 or so times per year, to watch DC United. And that's one of the problems -- my team now has to share its field with a baseball team. It is possible that the seats will move readily between baseball and soccer configurations, and the pitcher's mound won't be noticeable when there's a soccer game, and the dozens of things necessary for a smooth transition between the layouts for the two sports will go as planned. On this front, I can remain cautiously optimistic, at least until failure strikes. But several thousand lower bowl seats will no longer be available, thus reducing the atmosphere (and noise) generated at games. And suddenly, we who had been the principal tenants ever since the Redskins left, are now left with the scraps, squeezing games in at our beloved RFK during Nats' road trips. Long-suffering though the team may be, baseball still has clout over soccer in this country.

As a resident of DC, I'm also disgusted by the hundreds of millions of dollars we're giving to multi-millionaires in building the Nationals a new, 100% publicly-financed stadium. The greatest insult added to that injury is that the new owners will have naming rights for a stadium to which they contributed nothing. Hard to feel much pity for a team that came to town on its own terms, and to which my government kowtowed.

No, I won't be going to a Nationals game any time soon, if ever, even though the new stadium will also be close to where I live (though a much longer walk). Call me a curmudgeon (you wouldn't be the first), but I'll stick to rooting for the Red Sox from afar.