Crying the Tale of Two Cities
April 15, 2009 by Ted Leavengood · 5 Comments
There have been two starts to the season here in suburban Maryland, one in Baltimore, one in Washington. One season began in Baltimore where the Orioles showed heart and class, their booing Mark Teixeira lustily every time he came to the plate while the team won two of three from the $200 million dollar, gold-plated Yankees. A week later, in a second city, the worst team in baseball opened in Washington with their seventh loss in a row.
Mark Teixeira feigned interest in playing in his hometown to drive up salary demands from the Yankees, so few in this area were sorry to hear that Oriole fans gave lusty, heart-felt Bronx cheers to the native son turncoat. But the need to find heart and soul further up the coast from Washington is a painful one. There is so little baseball gravitas here it hurts.
First, President Obama refused to throw out the first pitch for the Nationals home opener, a tradition of some import hereabouts. Nationals stadium is decorated with murals of Presidents Roosevelt and Nixon—one fair, one un-balanced—throwing out the first pitch of the season. Then there is the matter of the seven game losing streak. President Obama might be forgiven for believing he has enough on his plate without worrying about the disaster that is Washington baseball. But no, he can’t be forgiven. This is no dog, dammit this is baseball.
Jim Bowden, like the president who did regularly throw out the first pitch, created a mess of monumental proportion in Washington. As I watched Daniel Cabrera begin the home opener, I had to ask myself what could that man have had for baseball intelligence. Pitching, pitching, pitching!!! Three things no Jim Bowden team ever had, and now Cabrera is one-fifth of what is almost certainly the worst starting rotation in the game.
Florida swept the Nationals in the opening series of the 2009 season and if they worked up a sweat doing it, I must have blinked. The Marlins trailed in only four innings as Washington’s pitching staff was touched up for eight runs per game. Dan Uggla, Jorge Cantu and Hanley Ramirez picked up where they left off in 2008, firmly in control every time they came up against a Nationals pitcher. Emilio Bonafacio—traded by Bowden to the Marlins last fall—embarrassed Washington, hitting .571 for the series with four stolen bases.
The Nationals have made progress in one area. They are no longer the most anemic offensive team in either league. They are scoring more runs than in 2008. But Monday’s Home Opener—the one missed by President Obama—illustrates the problem. Last year’s champions, the Philadelphia Phillies, scored nine runs (9) and we scored eight (8). Scoring eight runs was fun, but trailing for all but one inning—the first—that left much to be desired, Jimbo.
The death of Harry Kalas at the stadium before the game was a tragic blow to baseball and to the numerous Philly fans in attendance. All those City of Brotherly Love types were invited to the game by another president–Stan Kasten of the Nationals. Tom Boswell opined about just how clueless this affair has gotten in DC, when Kasten went on local radio in that Philadelphia—a city known for its foul-mouthed and pugnacious fans—to encourage them to buy tickets in Washington to see their team. “And what do you have in your wallet, Stan?” It must be pretty damn empty to go looking for ticket sales in Philly and invite the heathen hordes down from Philly to sack our new stadium.
Kasten might be better advised to spend his time interviewing GM candidates. The Baltimore Sun noted an important change in direction that Kasten might well heed. Their new GM, Andy McPhail, has the Orioles off to a fine start in 2009. When the Nationals get around to hiring a GM, the first order of business will need to be the pitching staff. But another area of concern might be this thing about leadership.
The Nationals are not without experience and character. There are senior members of the team like Adam Dunn (29), Cristian Guzman (31), and Nick Johnson (30). But what strikes one about this small group of the elder citizens is that only Guzman has ever played on a winner and that was four years ago. Johnson’s 2005 best season came when the Nationals finished at .500 and Dunn has never started on a team with a winning record. Sending Lastings Milledge to Syracuse to work on his attitude could be the first indication that someone on the team gets it. That was leadership.
So what will our presidents do to improve on the situation here in Washington? Can President Obama find time to read up on baseball traditions here in his new hometown? Can Stan Kasten and Ted Lerner have greater success talking a first-rate General Manager into taking on the challenge of building a winning tradition in DC for the first time in seventy-five years? We have no choice but to wait for the answers. It was the best of times,
it was the worst of times. Unfortunately there is only one tale, one city, and the times are down-right awful.
You’re right. It was a complete crime that they ever let Bill Clinton throw out a pitch. Maybe he should have stayed in his office and did something about the terrorist problem instead of letting Americans soldiers die all over the world.
Of course, when he was in the office, all he did was get blow jobs from fat girls. Yeah, he made an epic mess of things in Washinginton.
Fortuantely, the 8 years after were filled by a President who actually cared about his country and his citizens welfare.
Glad you pointed that out in a baseball blog. Its important to keep politics alive in these forums.
In the sober reality I inhabit the Nationals began play in 2005, well after BIll Clinton’s presidency. If there is too much political content article, my apologies. My intent was only to discuss the tradition of presidents throwing out the first pitch. It has meaning in Washington, DC that transcends politics and when presidents of either party ignore it, all baseball fans are the poorer for it.
I agree, but you choose to make it a personal attack on one particular person. Whether anyone liked him, or disliked him, or agreed/disagree with his policies, has nothing to do with the game itself. It was just a personal attack.
Why not attack Roosevelt for letting the NAZI’s exterminate Jews after he know about it, and didn’t throw out the ball during most of his career.
And while you have the right to write whatever you want, making a personal attack on any person when they had nothing to do with the point you were trying to make speaks volumes.
George Bush was a much bigger fan of baseball than any othehr president in history. Do the right thing, retract the statement.
Ted,
You are right on, no need to retract anything here. All you did was state a fact about who did not throw out the first pitch at the National’s home opener, in Washington D.C. I’m not sure wich post Ron was responding to since there were no “personal attacks” on anyone. You never even mentioned anyone’s personal sexual habits!
Your point, that the baseball scene in the nation’s capitol is in need of a boost from somewhere, was lost on Ron. However, anyone with a rational temporment got your point, and agrees.
Nicely done article. I think that Ron was a tad overdone in his response to your article but wish you would have spent more time on the Orioles and doing more comparative work.