I've been addicted to reading the comments on Nats-related sites for a while now; everything from here at NP to the myriad of responses at WaPo and beyond. So if I can - for just a moment - make a sweeping generalization: Nats fans are smart.

I'm not saying they are necessarily smartER than any other types of fans - whether it be of a different sport or of a fellow ball club. (OK, OK, OK. If I HAD to, I'd say...we may be smarter than perhaps some) But I just mean in their own way, Nats fans are a relatively smart bunch.

To give a concrete example, I'll use a Chico post today - "From This Point Forward". In the post, Cheeks asks folks to vote on what they think our win percentage will end up being at the end of this AMAZING baseball season. The comments are superb - everything from "if/then" stat-backed projections to thinking critically about the natural arc which seasons tend to take...to obscure Seinfeld references. And all without any need for people to showcase their smarts other than humbly in the WaPo comments section. It's endearing and makes me proud to be a citizen of NatsTown.

Joebleux: I can see a scenario where the bullpen and hitting both return to a semblance of normality, and we start losing games "normally", like 5-3 instead of our customary 11-8 bullpen blowup special, and finish at something like a .400 pace.

Gengreen17: If we had won even half of our bullpen losses, [then] we'd be in the thick of the division fight.

Section505203: ...Switch to all cotton uniforms courtesy of George Costanza.

I have a few theories about what's behind this more-cerebral fandom (DC is an intellectually ambitious place full of mostly nerds; our team being new equates to folks having a lot of recent knowledge at the ready; etc.). Whatever it is, though, I like it just as much as I like plain-and-simple baseball itself.

Hopefully we're not too smart for our own good - analyzing the team away into emotional irrelevance.

The last three games I've been to we've lost, and with a combined score of 21-4.  I know baseball is all about the numbers, and statistical comparisons, so there you have it:  My personal "fan math."

Everytime I watch a game I feel like I'm watching -- at least once a game -- Little League.  The worst/recent example is last night's 9-1 routing by our Beltway "rivals" where an Oriole hit the ball right near first base and all three of our guys stood there fumbling after it; I was expecting one of them to reach to down to pick it up, only to kick it further like that old-timey slapstick gag.  I mean, on Sunday afternoons there are more kids running the bases than Nats.

Pretty much our entire season-opening squad is on The List, with a short-and-stout catcher now playing as one of our outfielders.

We don't have one consistently-reliable pitcher (I didn't say "good", I said "consistently-reliable"), and we continue to suck the life of out of our farm system before it develops, because that's all we can do, because we don't have a consistently-reliable pitcher.

We're down 3.14% in overall performance from last season (almost 10% in runs scored), and we're stranding any potential scorers way more than in 2007.

We're one of the worst three teams in the MLB.

For all intents and purposes, we suck.  Halfway through the season, we suck, suck, suck.  Yep, we suck real bad...and we don't even have some "curse" to blame it on (well, Clint's always a good scapegoat.)

But guess what?  We also still have a real, live, professional Major League stadium just a three-minute walk off our Metro.  We still have baseball games on muggy summer nights and sweaty beer vendors ripping us off.  We still have bats hitting balls and leather gloves going "umpf!"  We have three year's of statistics and counting, kids seeing their first games, Day-O!, at-bats with Grand-Slam potential, and bugs flying around 1000-watt bulbs.

Who cares if we suck?  At least we have baseball.

 

 

 

 

It's a week of managerial shakeups with the Mets' overnight canning of Randolph and the woeful (I use the term sarcastically) Mariners having Bavasi walk the plank.  So, what -- if anything -- is in store for our boy Acta?  What does our own woeful (.408) record mean for Manny?  

Just today the Post's Chico Harlan had his own thoughts on the matter, mostly positive and appreciative of what the guy's done in his 1.5-year stint at the helm.  But what of his "unapologetic patience and positivism" when mid-season rolls around and we're still lying low at the bottom?

I personally think he's doing a great job.  Anyone who's ever played a team sport knows how contagious negativity can be, especially when you're the brunt of MLB jokes and constantly written off by pundits and Baseball Nation.  Indeed, it's a fine line between naive optimism and positive focus.  So for Acta to keep an unapologetic demeanor and to continue making calm and collected press conferences is already a huge leadership success, not to mention the firm choices on the mound and line-up.  He's ACT-ually managing what could otherwise be a gaggle-f*ck of ex-delinquents and givers-up, and my hat is off to him during this tense time in DC and across the League.

Now if only the Bowden/Kasten squad could give him something better to work with I would still have some fingernails left.

Just came from Nats Park where Wil Nieves won the game with a walk-off, two-run homer in the bottom of the Ninth to begin the next win streak for our Curly Dubyas, and MAN did that feel good!?Ǭ† I mean, yeah!

Especially with Cubbies all around me and their 100-year Cryfest watering down my already-watery Miller Lite.?Ǭ† (By the way, I've been wrong all along: it's only $7.50, not $8.)?Ǭ† Not that I'm hatin' on the Windy City fans, but it just felt so GOOD to win a close game all the right ways:?Ǭ† no errors, decent pitching and a strong finish, and, finally, a smack attack right when it mattered.

And you wouldn't believe Section 232 -- they got almost an entire circulatory wave going; I do believe it may have been the first one in the new digs so far (please correct me if I'm wrong)!?Ǭ† Just everything about tonight was...so...perfectly...baseball.?Ǭ† I honestly don't care if we end up with another five Ls in a row. If I get to be there for games like tonight - where all the elements are aligned - that will be enough to sustain me through weeks of sorrow.

Thank you, Nats, for the perfect start to my weekend!

While I agree with and appreciate?Ǭ†the majority of Mike K.'s rebuttal to the?Ǭ†negative-schtickism and purposeful-mopeyness?Ǭ†of Mike L.'s recent column, "Half Empty", I can't help but thinking how senseless this?Ǭ†conversation is in the first place.

Are we really debating whether all of this -- this baseball -- is failing??Ǭ† Seriously??Ǭ† In a town where change moves like molasses are we really already concerned?Ǭ†that change isn't happening quick enough??Ǭ† And are we going to actually engage the foolish rashness of folks like Mike L.?

It would be just as ridiculous to say that because we won our first game?Ǭ†with a perfect walk-off homer in front of a full house, that the rest of the season would follow suit.

Let's love the Nats for who they are and what they bring to our lives:?Ǭ† THAT'S why we have a reason to go.

Fenway has its verdant Monster and Neil Diamond sing-a-long; Wrigley its boistrous bleachers and snarky opposing homerun-ball return policy. The Yanks have their Roll Call; the Mets their Big Apple.

As a new season in baseball history unfolds in DC next week, what will we come up with? While 'tradition' can't be forced, it can be created, and it's the creative process that I hope to see from fans as the season plays out. I am excited to see what Nats fans come up with in the stands now that we have a permanent venue in which to display our love. I'm excited to randomly high-five strangers sitting around me, excited to hate on the visiting team, and excited to join in all of the cheers and jeers (and $8 beers). But this is just me. What kind of fans will you be and what does the future of Nats fanship look like?

The more important question is: what could get in the way?

The answer is the very thing that it takes to work in this town, and the key is staving off the cynical apathy we face in our everyday lives here in the nation's capital.

Here we are, a unique blend of ambitious out-of-towners and natives who deal with the transience. We are socially and economically fractured, yet hyperaware of it. For some, politics rule our lives, and for others it's just about getting by. We can argue until we're blue in the face and be over it in an instant; sometimes it's how we survive this place at all.

This is who we are, and who we're forced to be day in and day out. But I ask you, dear fan, to throw off the chains of self-checking, 9-to-5 office politics. Don't be afraid to look in the mirror and see more than a timid cube-rat cog in the system: You DO matter! Forget the pallid tedium of paper-pushery, political piffle and perfunctory pandering...You don't have to impress anyone here! There's no need to worry about screwing up a potential networking opportunity or blowing a hard-fought connection that could secure that major deal (well, at least anywhere outside of box seating). You can forget about looking stupid or emotional...in fact that should be your goal for once. Go ahead and put down that newspaper, broom, or gavel and raise that big foam hand. For in this city of repressed and cynical "get-'er-done"-ers, we have an outlet, and it's located at 1500 South Capitol Street.

Let's not let it go to waste.

This weekend I found myself in the unusual predicament of having nothing to do on a Saturday night. Before you call me a bigfatloser, I will explain that I had taken an overnight trip to visit a good friend, and it was she who decided to call it a night way earlier than I expected. I suppose the day's St. Patty's festivities caught up with her sooner than they did me (read: Colleen, ya gotta work on those drinkin' shoes!)

Anywho, I'm sitting on her couch at 11:30 pm browsing her "collection" of "movies": Mona Lisa Smile, The Notebook, etc. Still infused with the Luck of the Irish, I lamented out loud (hopefully she couldn't hear me upstairs) re: lack of anything good to watch. But before I was able to throw in the towel, I had one of those epiphanies that only comes along once every few years. Well, for me at least.

Hey, I didn't say I was the sharpest tool in the shed.

Comcast On Demand! Huzzah!

Before I even started browsing, my second epiphany came: baseball movie. It was a tie between the namesake of this humble column and Field of Dreams. Since I had been hanging around with a bunch of girls all day, I went with the latter. So I basked in the blue glow for the next two hours, watching one man's journey to complete the void he had felt since adolescence.

After I wiped the tears away after the final catch scene, it led me to realize that no doubt over the next few weeks the horse known as the phrase "If you build it, they will come" will be summarily bludgeoned to death by every sportswriter who conveniently remembers the Nationals even exist. We will hear from the AP on down to DCist about how the fate of DC baseball lies in whether this new stadium of ours will amount to real, dedicated fans with real, dedicated dollars. Seasoned veteran reporters to trend-bloggers will pretend like they have actually even watched FOD in the past ten years (next year it turns 20), and after they're through with ruining the film's tagline, my guess is that no one will be pressing 'play' for another ten.

My fear is that the stadium could get hyped up so much that anything less than a cameo by Shoeless Joe himself could end up being a disappointment.

So seriously, people. Don't be a lame head: Let's remember why we DID build the darn thing in the first place. It wasn't for empty showmanship and pretentious puffery. It wasn't because we 'needed' another monumental landmark in our fair city. And it wasn't because we wanted to force a fanship out of this unique and disparate market for no reason, and now we're at the whims of fair-weather sports "predictionists."

We built it because we love baseball on a summer night and because even if no one else could see what we saw, we'd still come out to watch the boys play.

So, yes, I do believe they will come. But for so many more reasons that you'll be given credit for.