What a Great Comeback! x2

They were in a must-win game last night -- lose and they'd be eliminated from the playoffs. They were banged up, with key players unavailable or trying to play through injuries. They fell behind, and stayed that way until late in the game. But then, to the delight of the home crowd, a late rally that resulted in an improbable victory left them to live another day. I was delighted, even though I recognized that the team still needed to win its next game as well, just to stay alive!

And I was at the game, in the third row, a live spectator to a wonderful win.

Wait, you thought I was talking about the Red Sox win? Well, except for that last sentence, I might as well have been. Yes, in addition to the Sox win that no doubt anyone who cares about sports already knows about, D.C. United played last night -- with two games left in the season, they were one of six teams fighting for the last three playoff spots, and of those six teams, we were on the bottom of the heap. So while a tie technically wouldn't eliminate us, it essentially would have done so.

United has had a disastrous end to the season, having not won a regular season game in nearly two months. And it's been a very long season. In addition to now having played 28 of the 30 games in the regular season, it's had four games in the CONCACAF Champions Cup, three games in the SuperLiga, four games in the U.S. Open Cup, and four games (with two more to be played) in the CONCACAF Champions League -- in other words, it's had more than another half a season of games to play in between its league matches. And the MLS roster rules and salary cap affords very little depth to teams. So fatigue would be enough of a problem even if injuries hadn't hit them, leaving them without some of their key players when they were most needed.

Last night, we had a lineup that included two guys who were playing in the third division two months ago (in baseball terms, think AA), and a forward who was waived at the start of the season by another club and who hadn't scored in the regular season. Three of our five first-choice offensive players (not counting one who has missed all but 15 minutes of the season) started on the bench (or weren't even available), and a fourth was returning from injury to play his first game in a few weeks.

Our opponent ironically was New England, a team that had sown up a playoff spot already but who was looking for home field advantage in its first round game. New England had the run of play early, but soon United had turned it around, and began creating numerous chances. However, United wasn't able to get the goal it sorely needed, its best chance of the first half bouncing off the crossbar, and the half ended in a scoreless tie. In the second half, United again controlled the pace of the game, but a disastrous turnover led to an easy goal by New England in the 58th minute, and suddenly we were half an hour from the virtual end to our season.

However, a couple of minutes later, with nothing to lose, the team pulled a defender and brought in Jaime Moreno, the League's all-time leading scorer, whose injured knee had kept him out of the starting line-up. The decision to bring in Moreno paid almost immediate dividends, as he soon assisted on a goal by Francis Doe, that waived forward who hadn't scored all year. Doe scored after a pretty cut back helped him elude his defender and get a good shot. After that goal, Fred, who was thought lost for the season due to a hamstring injury, entered the game as United's last allowed substitute, and United's offense was roaring.

Amazingly enough, the go-ahead goal came again at the foot of Doe, and was scored in impressive fashion. The ball was flicked to him by Tino Quaranta, and Doe was able to out-muscle and out-quick last year's Defender of the Year to square up for a shot that he got over the goalie (you can view this goal and the rest of the match highlights here).

United was able to ride out the last part of the match to finish with a win in its last home match of the season. Its next challenge is to finish the season on the road against the best team in the league, the Columbus Crew. A win may be difficult, but at least there's still something for the team to play for.
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Post Script: Starting at halftime, and throughout the second half, I was tracking the Red Sox-Rays game, seeing the deficit grow from 2-0 to 4-0 to 5-0, just glad that at least United had pulled off a win. I got home when it was still 5-0 to find a message from Dad, who is now a Rays fan, having lived in the Tampa area since before the team came into existence. I called him back, and explained where I had been. He wanted my support for the Rays, asking, couldn't I cheer for the underdog? I firmly responded by saying that I root for my team, no matter who they're playing. All the same, I congratulated him for his team, and shortly after I hung up, the deficit had grown to 7-0. I needed to go to bed -- I was exhausted, so after winding down a little more from the United match, turned in, even though I had seen that the Sox had cut the deficit to 7-4. It was only this morning that I learned that the Sox had scored four more runs in the last two innings to pull off the biggest comeback in post-season baseball in nearly 80 years.

Tepid Pitch

So I went to the Nationals game last night. This would be rather unremarkable but for the fact that part of my identity is the guy who plays fantasy baseball without actually having gone to a major league game since the strike of 1994 (#94, to be updated). I've been to minor league games since '94, just not the big leagues. Sheer stubbornness tinged with principle has been what's kept me away so long -- of course baseball is about money, but when the owners and players allowed the World Series to be canceled, it became clear that they really don't care about anything else.

On top of that, these are the Nationals, the team that screwed up the field for DC United because they now share the same stadium (though I must concede that after the first few games things have run fairly smoothly), and which the city is paying out over $600M in a sweetheart deal to build a new stadium for multi-millionaires.

You might ask what drove me to this decision, to which I respond that all the principle I've been holding onto has no place in resisting the wishes of Kathy when it's her birthday weekend -- a friend of hers had invited us, and amazingly enough, it was she who wanted to go. Later I constructed a rationalization that really I was simply attending the nearest minor league game -- the Nats were hosting the Pirates, and the two teams entered the weekend with a combined winning percentage (not batting average) of .288, at 17-42.

So after all that, the question remains whether I enjoyed myself. The answer is, not really. It wasn't because there was resentment at Kathy for making me go -- I was actually in decent spirits, and enjoyed the company. Among other things I was working with Kathy's friend to teach her to keep score (it was the friend's idea). I was underdressed for the game (it actually got pretty nippy), but I survived that ok. The problem was that these teams were simply bad. The Nats' pitcher labored through five innings, throwing over 100 pitches in the process. The Pirates' catcher had the dubious distinction of making two errors on the same play (threw it into center in trying to throw out a runner, letting the man on third come home, then misfielded the return throw, allowing the runner who started on first to make it to third). At least the Pirates' pitcher settled down after giving up four early runs, at one time retiring 10 straight batters. Another weird thing about the game was just how much the fans relied on the loudspeakers and scoreboard to induce them to cheer -- there's no piped music or anything at United games and we still cheer plenty, but then again, there's much less down time in a soccer game than in baseball.

After nine innings, Kathy was ready to head home -- the pregnancy leaves her exhausted and it was already past her bedtime. Sadly, the game went to extra innings, so we left without knowing who would win, but truth be told, neither of us really cared. Kathy says she's not inclined to go back, and I can't say I'm itching to return. But I guess I can no longer say never.

Pissing in the Wind

I usually resist the urge to respond when I come across a sportswriter's column that gets me riled up, lest I end up writing several letters a day. However, every once in a great while the urge to respond gets the better of me. This article was written in the context of a forthcoming book chronicling a mountain of evidence that's supposed to be sufficient to convince any neutral observer that Barry Bonds took steroids deliberately and in massive quantities, thereby tainting his achievements, including his home run total and his record 73-homer season. The author suggests that records achieved using steroids are no less worthy of distinction than are records achieved by Babe Ruth during the era that blacks were excluded from Major League Baseball (during which time Josh Gibson was the best Negro League slugger).

Mr. Jones,
In your recent article you stated, "When Bonds hits 715, it shouldn't be received as making a mockery of a virtuous past. Unless you -- yes, you -- find steroids more intolerable than segregation, that is."

Most people would find it absurd to even suggest that segregation is more acceptable than steroids, but it seems equally absurd to suggest that Bonds and Ruth consequently should be placed on equal footing. Ruth played within the rules of the game as it was played at that time. One can argue that Josh Gibson should be mentioned in the same breath as Ruth, or even ahead of him if you'd rather (as you note, Negro League statistics aren't as verifiable as Ruth's), but it makes no more sense to hold Ruth accountable for the fact that they weren't allowed to compete head-to-head a la McGwire and Sosa as it would be to hold Gibson accountable. Each did the best they could given the competition they faced.

If you're going to denigrate Ruth's accomplishments as you do here, are you ready to do the same for Jesse Owens' accomplishments in the Olympics because professional athletes weren't allowed to compete, or because most of Africa (except for Apartheid-era South Africa) didn't send athletes to the Olympics?
http://www.olympic-museum.de/part_count/1936.htm

Ruth played within the parameters of the game, and Bonds cheated -- there is no comparison.

Sincerely,
Aaron

I'll let you know if I get a response (though I'm not really expecting one).

Nats Redux et cetera

Damn Nationals!!! I wonder how much the final bill will be? Certainly higher than the latest revision. It was a bad deal when it was signed, and it's only getting worse. Send 'em to Vegas and let us be done with them!!

In other news, I'm headed to Arizona tomorrow night for T-giving with my clan, so I don't expect to post much over the next few days. But it could happen.

Back Despite Popular Demand

To build the new ballpark for the Washington Nationals, D.C. has filed papers to seize land from the 16 property owners with whom they have not been able to settle on a price. Apparently the most recalcitrant of the property owners runs a Chinese take-out restaurant -- the city and the property owner are $500,000 apart in price for this small store, and each side is leveling recriminations at the other. The whole nasty proceeding is being described as a case of Eminent Lo Mein.

A pun is the lowest form of humor - when you don't think of it first.
-- Oscar Levant

I pun (the pun above is one of my own creation). More often than not, a pun is told by a man -- men seem to appreciate this particular form of humor more than women. I remember an English teacher in high school (male) used to tell puns all the time. At the time I was not a punster, but somehow, over the years, I have become one. I don't even know how it started.

A pun is not bound by the laws which limit nicer wit. It is a pistol let off at the ear; not a feather to tickle the intellect.
-- Charles Lamb

Puns evoke groans. Indeed, I feel most satisfied with a pun when it evokes a groan. I feel fortunate that Kathy finds my puns endearing, even as she groans at them.

A pun does not commonly justify a blow in return. But if a blow were given for such cause, and death ensued, the jury would be judges both of the facts and of the pun, and might, if the latter were of an aggravated character, return a verdict of justifiable homicide.
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes

Shakespeare might have used more puns than anyone else. Does this mean that I'm in good company, or that this is one of his few shortcomings (along with Pericles)?

Confession

One thing that really bothers me is when I'm stuck in a traffic jam because of an accident. Actually, that's not true -- what bothers me is when I'm stuck because of damned rubberneckers slowing down to see the accident that's already on the side of the road. What in the world are they hoping to see, and can't they just pull over and let the rest of us get on our way?

Yet here I am, rubbernecking at the Yankees. I'm enjoying the Yankees' disarray at least as much as I am anything the Red Sox are doing. I'm paying more attention to the Yankees than I am to the division-leading Orioles. It's just so much fun to watch a team that's spending so much more money than anyone else in baseball look like crap, particularly when it's the team that's been the Sox' nemesis for so many years.

Admittedly, it's early enough in the season that the Yankees could right their ship, but they have a lot of problems to fix if that's going to happen. And as long as they don't, I'll probably be watching.

Another Reason to Hate the Nats

I was walking home from work tonight, and as I made my way east on Independence Avenue, I noticed police slowly but surely blocking off traffic, even preventing pedestrians from crossing one side of Independence to another (fortunately I crossed before they started doing that). It wasn't until I saw that the blockade continued on Independence east of the break with Pennsylvania Avenue that I realized what was going on -- Bush was on his way to throw out the first pitch for the first Washington Nationals home game. As it was, the game started at 7pm, perfectly timed to induce additional gridlock upon rush hour (apparently this will be the normal starting time for weeknight games). The additional 15-minute delay caused by the Bush motorcade was just another burden drivers had to contend with.

Another thing: as I got to my house, a couple of guys asked if they were headed in the right direction to the game. I politely helped them, and as they headed out, one said, "It's been a long time since 1996." "1996?" I asked? They both exclaimed, "The last Redskins game at RFK!" Silly me, I had been going to RFK at least a dozen times a year since then for United games, tells you what little I know.

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.