Philip Hochberg and A Nationals’ Report Card

Friday night on the Outta the Parkway Show , Philip Hochberg–long time public announcer for Washington sports teams–looked back over more than sixty years of baseball history and his report card on Washington baseball was a disappointing one. On Friday night one game stood out in his memory, one  from the first year of the expansion Washington Senators.

It was of June 1961 and Mickey Vernon’s recruits had traveled to Boston’s Fenway Park playing surprisingly well.  Their record stood at 30 wins and 30 losses as the series against Boston began and hope ran high for the new team.

The Senators lost the first two contests against Boston, but were ahead in the third game of the four-game series by a commanding 12-5 score going into the final inning. A win would have pulled them back to a game under .500, but with only a single out to go, Washington could not close the deal. The Red Sox–a lackluster bunch playing without Ted Williams for the first time–scored eight runs to win that game 13-12. The Senators were never the same, winning only twenty-five more times that season while losing sixty.

Philip Hochberg wondered aloud on the show whether a very similar loss by the Washington Nationals–last Thursday to the Cubs–could have a similar effect.  In this instance the Washington club had gained an 8-run advantage, but managed to lose by a 10-9 margin in the late innings. “I hope that doesn’t augur for the future on July 8th, 2011.”

Recounting the conversation with Hochberg to my tennis partner on Sunday morning, he remembered that same 1961 game against the Red Sox, even noting exactly where he was at the time–glued to a transistor radio in Ocean City as that horrid inning played out.  Clearly it was a game of some emotional impact–the kind not to be repeated for certain.

Hochberg lamented not only that defining game and the losing streak it foretold, but also his and other Washington fan’s long record of frustration. He was a young boy when he first started going to games at old Griffith Stadium in 1948.  “And until today the Washington team has had two winning seasons,” he said. All those Cub fans talking about losing have no sympathetic ear from Hochberg. He believes that Washington fans have no rival when it comes to “that feeling of having a team on the way.”

I told Hochberg that I did not see any parallel between those teams and this one, that the old Senators are not today’s Nationals. I held forth bravely that this team is truly one on its way. But my confidence in that prediction was not overwhelming.

And so it was with special enthusiasm that I watched Drew Storen close out the first half of the 2011 season for the Nationals with a win against the Colorado Rockies. The 2-0 win on Sunday afternoon was typically close and hard-fought as fans sat on the edge of their seats wondering if Washington would find a way to cough up the lead in the bottom of the ninth. But Storen is another of those young players that mark a different trajectory for this team. His save of that game put the Nationals record at 46 wins and 46 losses heading to the All-Star Break.

Even Hochberg agreed that there is a different feel to the current Nationals team. It is not a team drawn from a hat like that ’61 team. This is a team that has been carefully constructed during the past few years by Mike Rizzo. It has some very fine pieces, not the least of which is Rookie of the Year candidate, Danny Espinosa.

Philip Hochberg also cited the young second baseman’s singular standing, saying “I am head over heals over this guy.” As Hochberg noted, it is not just the bat, but the exceptional glove work of Espinosa that makes him a legit candidate for honors at the end of the season. But he has company in Wilson Ramos, the young catcher who handles the pitching like a seasoned professional and has led the league in throwing out runners much of the first half.

The winning pitcher on Sunday, Jordan Zimmermann, shut out the Rockies for more than six innings. Like Ramos, Espinosa, Desmond, Bernadina, Clippard and Storen he is part of the up-the-middle defense that makes this team different.

New Nationals manager Davey Johnson said he took his 25-year old ace out of the game in the seventh because he did not want the young man to lose that ball game. Johnson saw it as a defining moment for Jordan Zimmermann, the Nationals season, and his own stewardship of the team. So he pulled the young pitcher when he could still get the win.

Johnson cited the emotional cost of so many close games and said one more loss could have sent the team stumbling into the second half. But Johnson and his young charges did not let it happen. The bullpen of Ryan Mattheus and Tyler Clipand shut the Rockies down to preserve the lead and Storen closed it.

The core of impressive young talent makes these Nationals different and there is more on the way. The Nationals organization will likely contribute new young players like Steve Lombardozzi and Brad Peacock next season regardless how much progress Bryce Harper makes.  The crucial variable is 22-year old Stephen Strasburg who is now re-habbing his arm and every report says he is on his way back.

Philip Hochberg admitted that he watches every game now, every pitch. “I have become a fan all over again,” he said with meaning in his voice. He and I are linked at the hip in our devotion to this team and its potential. They will not disappoint, of that I am certain. This newest century of baseball is going to be very different than the last for Washington baseball.

“It is un-requited,” Hochberg said of his long devotion to Washington baseball. For fans of his generation–and really all those that have followed–there has never been that romantic moment where the team returned the favor of their devotion with a run for the pennant.

Yet for all the cynics and realists who sit waiting for the other shoe to drop, for another defeat snatched from the jaws of victory, there is the reassurance that one of the most knowledgeable of fans–Philip Hochberg–shares their secret hope that they are wrong. And more importantly, he shares the hope that some day soon there will be a World Series played on both ends of the Baltimore-Washington Parkway.  Now that is a report card even I could take hom.