The good, the bad, and the ugly: Nats blow lead, lose to Marlins 9-6 in 11, fall to 1-10

I was disappointed that I wasn't able to use my tickets to the Nats/Marlins game yesterday, but it was a 1:05 game, and I work Saturdays. To compound my envy for those who A) didn't have to work, and B) were going to the game, the weather was 100% glorious, as almost-perfect a spring day as one could wish for in Washington. To make matters even more vexing, it was schedule-magnet giveaway day. Fortunately, I was able to give my tickets to a friend.

If you had the opportunity to go to the game and turned it down because of the Nats record, I think that you kind of missed the bigger picture of what baseball joy is all about; watching your favorite team on a beautiful afternoon. I mean, really, is there a nicer way to spend an ideal spring afternoon? Isn't that what so many of us missed about growing up in D.C. from 1972 until 2005?

So with no T.V. available to me, I did what any other devoted Nats fan would do when confronted with such barriers: I simply put on Charlie and Dave and played out the action in my head (oh, and on the gameday feature of Nationals.com)

Things certainly looked bright at the end of the first inning, as Austin Kearns hit a grand slam to put them up 5-0. The Nats were getting hits galore, and their fortunes were looking as bright as the sky over Nationals Park.

That was the good.

The club had a sad scare late in the game when Roger Bernadina, playing centerfield for Elijah Dukes, who was being disciplined for being 5 minutes late for work, went way back to the wall to snag a long fly ball and made a spectacular catch and throw, but fractured his ankle in the process and had to be helped off the field. He had two screws inserted into his ankle, and will be out for several months, and the club has called up Justin Maxwell from AAA Syracuse to fill in for him.

That was the bad.

With starter Scott Olsen and the bullpen having allowed only 4 runs, the Nats were one out away from victory at the top of the 9th, when closer Joel Hanrahan allowed a home run with a man on base to suddenly tie the game, 6-6. The game went into 11 innings, and the Marlins chalked up 3 more runs and the Nats lost 9-6.

That was the ugly.

What are the odds that a closer is going to have two consecutive blown saves, on consecutive days, to the same opponent, both of which were home runs which tied the game? I hope that Hanrahan's teammates kept all sharp objects away from him and confiscated his shoelaces afterwards.

After the game, I was certainly conflicted. I sure was disappointed in the surprise loss, and I didn't have to eat my heart out that I'd missed a great win (I still wish I'd been there for Kearn's grand slam, though) and I didn't feel so bad that I'd been inside on such a great day.

There's been a lot of chatter online about the Nats decision to sit Elijah Dukes for being 5 minutes late to work. Dukes had been doing something for Little Leaguers, some sort of community outreach that the Nationals encourage the players to do, even though this wasn't a club-sponsored event. Not only was Dukes on the bench for most of the game, and fined $500, supposedly he's been threatened by acting General Manager Mike Rizzo with being sent down to AAA Syracuse if it happens again.

I think that this whole situation is ridiculous. There have to be extenuating circumstances and a certain degree of flexibility on the part of the club. It isn't as though he was late because he was out drinking all night and overslept, for crying out loud. But being threatened with being sent down to the minors? Good grief.

Dukes is obviously turning his life around from his troubled past and doing what the club asks of him. The $500 fine I have no problem with, that is still a punishment.

I'm beginning to wonder if sitting Dukes wasn't an excuse to give Bernadina some playing time. Manager Manny Acta is having trouble trying to accomodate all of his outfielders so this might have been a perfect act of expediency on his part.

But what an odd confluence of events which has sent Bernadina to the disabled list. I just learned that the Nats have already sent 7 players to the disabled list this season. Shades of 2008, and let's hope that it doesn't get any worse.

I hope that after Sunday, that we're done with the Marlins for a while.

Nats lose heartbreaker to Marlins in 10, 3-2, fall to 1-8.

Friday, April 17th was a gorgeous spring evening for baseball. Too bad I didn't have tickets, but I usually forgo Friday night games anyway because I have to be at work so darned early on Saturdays. And if there is a rain delay (or extra innings, as tonight's game had), it just increases my anxiety of being able to drag my butt out of bed Saturday morning in time to be at work when I need to.

Tonight's game might have been worth the effort, though. Starter John Lannan ("The Walrus", I call him) had a wonderful game, the bullpen was terrific, especially our new setup man, Joel Beimel, who ROCKS, and poor Joel Hanrahan blew his save with the home run he allowed.

Alberto "The A.G." Gonzalez might just be the most exciting player we have right now (I'm also thinking that he needs a better nickname. The joke was, he has the exact same name as a recent Attorney General, so perhaps we should just call him, 'Top Cop"? Heck, I dunno, I'm just spitballing here.) Don't get me wrong, I love Cristian "All-Star, 5 for 5" Guzman, but Gonzalez brings a lot to the table. I'm pretty happy with the Nats shortstop situation right now.

Manager Manny Acta got ejected for only the second time in his brief career, and at the moment (top of the 10th inning) I still don't quite know why, but I'm slightly bemused because I was there in Philadelphia when Acta got his first career ejection, two seasons ago, and there was no question why at the time. Funnily enough, John Lannan was also pitching that day (it was his Major League debut) and due no doubt to jitters, he hit two Phillies batters, Chase Utley (broke Utley's hand, too) and Ryan Howard, and umpire Hunter Wendlestead (sp?) tossed him and then tossed Acta, who came out to defend his player. Even MASN color commentator, Hall of Fame pitcher Don Sutton, thought that Wendlestead made a bad decision there. And, oh, were the Philly fans in a heated lather over that! They were calling for Lannan's head.

My gosh, it's great to see some Nats offense. They didn't have a lot of runs tonight, but they sure had a lot of hits, 12 to be exact.

No, the Nats didn't win, but they played well against the team with the best record in baseball. They led most of the night and only made one error. If it weren't for that one hanging breaking ball from Hanrahan in the 9th, they would have pulled it out 2-1.

Yeah, I hate losing as much as the next fan, but there is losing and there is losing badly, and the Nats didn't lose this one badly. It gives me hope for tomorrow and Sunday. It's an encouraging loss, not a horrible, dispiriting, crushing loss.

If this team continues to compete like this, the victories will certainly come in due course.

And someday soon, they should be able to string two victories together. And won't that be grand?

The 1988 Orioles can relax, no challenge to their 0-22 start this year as Nats beat Philies 8-2 to advance to 1-7.

What a relief. Nice to get that first one out of the way, and in such high style, too. Home runs from Adam Dunn, Josh Willingham, Elijah Dukes, and Alberto Gonzales. Starter Shairon Martis got a nice win, too. Great performances from all of the "new" guys; Willingham, Gonzales, and Roger Bernardina, who got a nice stolen base.

This is the kind of performance that I think most of us were expecting seven games ago. Let's just hope that the team got off to a slow start and needed time to "find" itself.

Another couple of nice things: no errors, and not many stranded baserunners, only eight, I think. Much better than those games last week, such as the one where the Nats stranded 15 (or was it 16?) men on base.

All in all, a great treat for all of the Nats fans who showed up at the park this evening. Tonight's game wasn't in my package, alas.

Oh, and those new "alternate" uniforms are pretty darned snazzy. They remind me a bit of the Braves alternate home uniform introduced a season or two ago. Frankly, I like them better than the "official" white with red home uniform. The blue hat is cool, with the red, white, and blue interlocking "DC", but I'd prefer to see a red, white, and blue curly "W" instead. I vote that the club wears that uniform at home for the rest of the season.

The State of the Blog Address (for any who were interested)

Well, it's been almost an entire year between blog posts. Miss me? (Don't answer that).

I was quite excited a year ago when the new stadium was opening and I thought for certain that the 2008 Washington Nationals would be more competitive than the 2007 squad, if for no other reason that the smaller dimensions of the new park would allow for more offense than the canyon of R.F.K. ever could.

Then came the collapse.

Sometime around July 4th, I even stopped going to the games, as real life interfered which necessitated a move and all of the expenses that entails, not to mention the time involved. The Nationals didn't make it too tough on me to miss their home games, they obliged me by losing and giving me little reason to regret my stadium non-attendance.

The other problem was the ballpark itself. Oh, it's beautiful and clean and has plenty of food and drink and fun opportunities for families, and the Metro system makes it pretty easy to get to. The scoreboard is terrific and as far as I'm concerned the only "bad" seats are ones where you cannot view the scoreboard. Volumes were written last year by more patient bloggers than myself, as well as the working press, about the virtues and vices of Nationals Park, but my single biggest problem with it was that it isolated me from a lot of the people I enjoyed seeing, and because there are no large parking lots which bring in most of the fans, I couldn't really bump into friends on my way out of the games the way that I could at R.F.K. So that took away a lot of the fun for me. I do like the new ballpark - really, at the end of the day, what's not to like if you're an average (or even above-average) fan?

With the way things went in 2008, I didn't feel much like blogging about the team. Honestly, who really wants to read a litany of losing? It just gets tiresome, and I was completely uninspired. There's also been an increase in the number of baseball blogs which are either devoted to the Nationals or include them often enough in their content. I salute them for their efforts. They must not just have the time, which has to be considerable to do any justice, but also the passion and inspiration to do it.

It also didn't help that the Nationals traded away two of my favorite players (Ryan Church and Brian Schneider) for Lastings Milledge, who has been lauded up and down for having such promise, yet he has struggled so mightily since joining the club that seven games into this season, they've already sent him down to minor-league Syracuse. That really hurt me as a fan, I loved both of those players, and miss them terribly. I'm just happy, for their sakes, that they went to a more successful organization, the New York Mets.

What people must never forget about the 2008 Nationals as they marched to 122 loses and became the worst team in MLB is the plague of injuries that they suffered. The squad which took the field on Opening Day was completely devastated by injuries and if I remember this correctly, every player who was on the field on Opening Day went to the D/L at least once by the All-Star break. The only bit of pleasantry was seeing SS Cristian Guzman become the team representative to the All-Star game, after suffering such terrible campaigns in 2005 and 2006.

So many players have come and gone. The only ones left from Opening Day of the inaugural 2005 season are 1B Nick Johnson (finally healthy again? Fingers crossed!) and Guzman. I realize that cuts and trades are the nature of the game, but it would be nice to have a little more stability and continuity.

The post 2008 off-season of moves was interesting, all the way up through spring training. The Lerner family attempted to land free agent Mark Texeira, who decided that the allure of New York Yankee pinstripes and more-likely post-season glory was more valuable to him than the money that the Lerners offered as well as closer proximity to his family in Maryland. They did succeed in signing slugger Adam Dunn which promises to add excitement at the plate and veteran leadership in the locker room. They traded for Josh Willingham and Scott Olsen from the Florida Marlins. There are far too many other personnel changes to list, (including the coaching staff) but those were the major acquisitions.

To the surprise of few (and the delight of many, according to many blogs and published comments) the Nationals General Manager Jim Bowden resigned after facts came to light about one of their highly-touted Carribean prospects, who turned out to be older than originally thought and even his name was not what everyone thought that it was. Bowden resigned during the ongoing investigation, and was never actually charged with anything, but after the 122-loss season and allegations of misconduct in the club's Carribean operations, Bowden claimed to resign so as not to be a distraction to the team. Some of his assistants, including José Rijo, the head of their Carribean operation, also resigned or were let go. No immediate successor has been named, but assistant General Manager Mike Rizzo has taken on some General Manager duties and team President Stan Kasten is, essentially, also the General Manager for the time being.

The Nats had a good Spring Training and their minor leaguers are showing promise. All signs have pointed to a better 2009 season that 2008 was.

Well, that remains to be seen. As of today, Wednesday, April 15th, the Nats are 0-7. They've definitely had more offensive production, but they've also been stranding far too many baserunners. They definitely need some tweaking and tinkering and Manager Manny Acta has his hands full.

The Nats home opener, two days ago, was somewhat more sedate due to the 0-6 record, the overcast sky and cool weather, and the decision by President Obama not to honor one of D.C.'s oldest professional baseball traditions, the throwing-out of the honorary first pitch by the current President. Many fans were disappointed by that.

I'm not certain how many fans thought that the Nats had a real chance against the visiting Philadelphia Phillies, the reigning World Series Champions, but considering that the Nationals made three errors and starting pitcher Daniel Cabrera had a weak outing, they may have been lucky to only have lost 9-8. Adam Dunn, Elijah Dukes and Ryan Zimmerman all had home runs, which made things exciting, and Cristian Guzman went 5 for 5 at the plate, but pulled his hamstring running to first base.

Before the game began, the team had a moment of silence for Los Angeles Angels pitcher Nick Adenhardt, who perished with two others in a car crash last week after Opening Day. Adenhardt had many local connections, having been a Maryland native. A further sad pall was cast over the day's festivities by the sudden death of Phillies broadcaster Harry Kalas, in the Nationals press booth, less than three hours before the start of the game. Kalas, a broadcasting legend both in MLB and the NFL, had been ill, but no one suspected that he wasn't well enough to travel. I have to believe that his sudden death gave the Phillies players added incentive to win that day's game on his behalf.

After a day off, the Nationals were to resume their 3-game series with the Phillies, but the game was postponed due to the day's continued rainfall. Perhaps it was a mercy, in that it gave Guzman and other players more time to rest.

So that's the "Reader's Digest condensed-version" of recent and near-recent events surrounding the Nationals. For my part, I've had to scale down from a full-season ticket plan to a 40-game plan due to economic reasons. I am already missing knowing that I can attend any game that I wish to (or not). I've moved over from the 1B side to the 3B side to be in the shade during the day games. Really, in relation to the field, I'm about where I was at R.F.K. Stadium, perhaps a tad bit closer to home plate. I have no complaints.

So far, I've seen usher Tim Harris and beer vending legend Neal. Nice to catch up with old friends. There are still many people who I'm anxious to see though. I hope to catch up with many more people at the ballpark before the end of the month.

I didn't get to the ballpark as early as I would have liked, so I missed some of the Opening Day ceremonies, but I bought a beer from Neal. I haven't tried any of the new food offerings yet from the new food vendor, but I look forward to some of my favorites: Five Guys burgers, Ben's half-smokes and some chili and cheese nachoes.

Many comments have been made about the new bronze statues in the Centerfield Plaza area, of D.C baseball legends Walter Johnson, Josh Gibson, and Frank Howard. None of the comments have been positive. I have to agree. Sadly, I think that those statues are as ugly as sin and they do not do dignified justice to their subjects. A tremendous opportunity for truly majestic and dignified statues has been squandered. Such a pity. Those men deserve better. If I get to see Frank Howard again soon, I will offer him my regrets that his statue wasn't nicer.

I had a really nice chat with a couple of Phillies fans sitting near me. They were greatly outnumbered by Nationals fans on Opening Day, but I really detected an improved attitude by them over recent years. I think that because they won the World Series last October, after a 28-year drought, their fans have less of a chip on their shoulders. I could be wrong, though. Perhaps by mid-season their frustrations will return and they'll be back to their old selves again. There was one Philly fan nearby me who made a couple of rude comments, but perhaps winning gives them license to make such comments. Hopefully, I'll find out the answer to that question myself some day.

I'm not a "fair weather" fan, but for me the simple facts are that I go to the Nationals games to have fun and enjoy myself, and when they are losing so badly and not putting a team on the field that I really want to watch, I lose a lot of incentive to go and have even less incentive to want to share my thoughts about it. They don't have to win 120 games to satisfy me as long as they are a COMPETATIVE team playing baseball worth watching. They don't have to win the division to keep me interested, just keep my hopes up, that's all I ask. The Nationals aren't "loveable losers", they are a young team trying to find itself, but it gets rough when you have to listen to a constant barrage of criticism and bragging from Orioles fans, Mets fans, Phillies fans, Braves fans, et. al. And blogging isn't my job, it is something that I do to share the joys of Nationals baseball with my family and friends and whomever else cares to read these miscellaneous ramblings of mine. But the Nationals have to give me something joyful to write about first.

Despite all of their troubles and loses, Nationals baseball is STILL better than no baseball at all to me. I love meeting other fans, even fans of other teams and just having nice discussions about baseball. At it's best, it's completely wonderful.

I remain hopeful, if guarded, about their prospects for this season.

Look for me in section #112, row HH. I'll be the guy in the red Nats cap. Say "hello" if you have the time.

Second-baseman's Slam Silences "Shea Stadium South"

There is still too much to recap for the month so far, but last night's game against the New York Mets was special for me several reasons and I just have to blog about this.

Number one - the Nats won! 10-5 against the division-rival New York Mets, who had already beaten them 4 straight games this young season, and they did it in such dramatic fashion, coming back from a 3-0 deficit to tie the game 3-3 before...

Number two - the Felipe Lopez GRAND SLAM! There it was, the score tied 3-3 with 2 out in the 6th inning and Felipe Lopez ("FLop", to us hard-core fans), who had just recently won back the starting 2B job from the struggling Ronnie Belliard, launched a 3-2 change-up from Aaron Heilman several rows into the right center field seats. It was a thing of true beauty - not a rocket, not a "frozen rope", just a nice parabola, which "settled" into the seats, as they say. My God, it was almost lazy how that ball arced over right-fielder Ryan Church's head and out of the field.

I was so relieved that the Nats were able to get that little bit of ballpark history out of the way. It was bad enough that the hated Larry "Chipper" Jones of the division-rival Atlanta Braves hit the first regular-season home run in the new ballpark on Opening Day (why couldn't it have been a National? D'oh! Eh, at least we had Zimm's walk-off homer) but I dearly hoped that several Nationals Park "firsts" would belong to our own players, and now we have another one, and a juicy one at that: the first Grand Slam hit in our park was by our very own Felipe Lopez and it was the game winner, the RBI's which put the Nats over the top. Mark your calendars, Nats fans, this is the answer to an excellent trivia question someday.

For four seasons now, I've had to suffer through the Mets visits to R.F.K. and now Nationals Park, and each time, the stands are FILLED with Mets fans. It is so ridiculous, the imbalance of fans, that our ballparks have become temporarily "Shea Stadium South". The cheers for the Mets are louder than for the Nats, and I feel bad for our players, who deserve better support in their own home ballpark. The only good part is, when the Nats actually BEAT the Mets at home, and the Mets fans fall silent. My God, that is a wonderful moment. When Lopez hit that Grand Slam, it just sucker-punched the Mets fans into silence - except for the fans yelling, "Heilman, you're a bum!" that is. It might not happen again this season, but for one warm spring night, the Nats came from behind and roared ahead of the Mets to deliver the hometown fans a sweet victory which was most overdue. And for "FLop", the baseball gods showered him with redemption, after a season where he seemed to be malaise and ennui personified.

It was also very nice to see pitcher Mike O'Connor back after missing all of 2007 due to surgery and recovery. Remember him? He's the Ellicott City, Maryland youngster who went to George Washington University and played well for them. He's a future starter and played well-enough in the minors for the Nats that they called him up and sent down Ray King (actually, offered him an option to AAA Columbus) but for now, O'Connor is out of the bullpen, and he acquitted himself very well last night in his inaugural appearance this season.

I arrived at the ballpark towards the end of the 3rd inning and after saying hello to Rico, back selling programs after being sick during the last homestand, I went up to section 240 to try my luck with the Five Guys stand. I've never had Five Guys burgers before, but I've heard about them for years, and I was happy to see that either the Nationals or concessioner Centerplate made a deal to get them into the ballpark because they originated here in our area, so they are "local" even if they are franchised now. I ordered a bacon cheeseburger with raw onions, pickles, lettuce, tomato, mustard, ketchup and relish, and also an order of fries.

I'll say here and now that this was the greatest fast-food burger I've ever had in my entire life. Seriously. No joke, no exaggeration. Five Guys lives up to their vaunted reputation and hype. The only better burgers I've ever had have been at top restaurants here in D.C. such as Michel Richard's Central and also at Circle Bistro. On top of how fantastic the burger was, I LOVE how they served me. You ordered, you paid, then you waited for your number to be called. And the burger was wrapped in aluminum foil and placed in its own paper bag, and the fries were placed in a cup and in their own paper bag. BRILLIANT! These were easy to carry (MUCH easier than a cardboard tray) and kept me from having to worry about dropping or spilling any of them.

I haven't tried every single food offering yet, and I haven't actually been to the Ben's Chili Bowl stand itself (though I've really enjoyed the Ben's half-smoke "all the way", that's a great meal), but I'll say for the record that, if asked, my vote for the best Nationals Park food goes to Five Guys first (both due to quality and service) and Hard Times a close second, with Ben's in third place but not by much. We have some pretty darned good stadium food to be proud of, I think.

So this was a nice evening of firsts for Nationals fans in general and for me in particular, one of those special nights that reminds me of why I go to such great lengths to attend Nationals baseball games in the first place. Nothing beats the thrills that a baseball game can give to you.

Rumors of this blog's demise are premature, and yet...

Those of you who might have read this blog in 2007 might have noticed that it has barely changed since September of last year. For reasons too numerous to list, that has, indeed, been the case. Suffice it to say that real life has taken precedence over online writings and ramblings. This blog is a hobby, not my job. My actual life has demanded far more of my time than I have been able to find, and this blog became a regrettable casualty of that.

What that means is, for me to be able to write a Nationals blog with any relevancy, I need to re-tool it a bit. Whereas last season, it was a daily blog (more or less), it will now likely become a weekly roundup. I'll try to write more often as time allows, though.

There will be other changes as well. With the regrettable departure of one of my very favorite Washington Nationals, the erstwhile New York Met Ryan Church, all of the fun has gone out of the idea of my "Ryan report". Sure, we still have Zimmerman and Austin Ryan Kearns, and Joel Ryan Hanrahan, but the gimmick is played out. You need at least four to make it any fun at all, and with Ryan Wagner on the D/L and Langerhans nowhere to be found, it's just not going to work this season, unless Jim Bowden makes some highly coincidental moves (Ryan Braun from the Brewers, anyone?)

Another thing that has changed the fun of blogging for me has been the new ballpark.
Oh, it's beautiful, it's positively gorgeous. I love it! I finally feel that the Nats are being treated like a major league team, and I will no longer have to listen to visiting Phillies fans, or Orioles fans, or any number of other teams fans, decry the terrible old conditions of R.F.K. Stadium. Now, I can puff out my chest with some sense of pride, we have the newest and best baseball park in the country. Okay, sure, it isn't in the top ten, but the Post's Thomas Boswell put it very nicely in his recent online chat:

"As I've written, the park is a beauty. No, not in the top seven, which are almost untouchable __Fenway, Wrigley, Yanks, Dodgers, Giants, Pirates, O's. But right in the battle with the next seven really wonderful parks in (no order) Seattle, San Diego, St. Louis, Colorado, Cleveland and Philadelphia. If the Nats get the parking right and the neighborhood gets built up and the waterfront is developed, there's a chance for Washington to get into the Top 10 in a few years. Certainly the top dozen. That's high praise in an era when (within three years) there will be 22 new parks opened since '91, plus Fenway, Wrigley, Dodgers Stadium and the still-elegant Royals Stadium. The Golden Age of Ballparks. And Washington is now right in the middle of it." (Thomas Boswell, Washington Post online chat, April 18, 2008)

I love the layout in terms of accessibility, the wide concourses, the extensive food options, the big new Team Store, that gorgeous scoreboard..As Dmitri Young said, "What's not to love?"
So what about the new ballpark has changed the experience for me? It isolates me a lot more from the folks who bring us baseball 81 times per season: the front-office personnel, the broadcasters, some of the ushers and other stadium workers. Everyone is spread out now, and compartmentalized. Remember Ellie? She's still there, but for me to see her, I have to wait for an elevator and take it up several floors. Susan, one of my favorite ushers, is now in either the Diamond Club or the President's Club, I can't just stroll by her section before the game and say hello. Also, the design of the seating area precludes quick visits to other sections. Unlike R.F.K., there is no horizontal movement between sections in the lower seating area except through the seats, so this greatly hampers moving around the lower seating area quickly and easily. It is, therefore, more difficult to visit friends in other sections.

Also, because most of us fans appear to be taking Metro to the ballpark, I haven't been running into so many friends that I used to see while coming or going from R.F.K.'s Lot #8. It's tough to just "hang out" around there after a game. I'm learning and experiencing for myself that Metro-fans don't fool around either before or after the games, there seems to be a real purposefulness and focus to getting to and from the ballpark. No one seems to want to linger around outside yet. Perhaps due to the cold weather, no one has so far, and there isn't as much development to distract fans on foot, no restaurants or bars. Hopefully, this will change for the better.

The upshot of all of that is, I don't have as many interesting encounters with other people as I'd grown accustomed to having at old R.F.K. over the past 3 seasons. Sure, it's early still, but I'm not optimistic.

Most unexpectedly, and the part that I hate to mention because of the terrible reflection upon my own character as a fan, the final thing that has kept me from blogging sooner is..... this terrible losing streak. For a while there, I thought that the 2008 Nats were going to challenge the 1988 (was it?) Orioles, who began their season 0-22 (correct me if I'm wrong about that, I just don't feel like researching it.) It was a long time ago, but I still remember the Sports Illustrated cover with Oriole Billy Ripken with his forehead resting on the butt of a bat, looking as dejected as any athlete ever has after losing. As of tonight, the 2008 Nats have a worse record than the 2007 Nats who were widely projected before the season began to have an historically bad season, challenging the inaugural season of the New York Mets for 120+ losses.
This 2008 squad was supposed to be better than last year's. Maybe not NL East champions, but right in the thick of things, with a solid chance at .500 or better. Our alleged hot-bats are stone cold, and there are sloppy mistakes being made.

I'm not turning on the team in any way, shape or form, far from it. It's still early, and for me, even bad baseball is better than no baseball at all. But things are very different now, mostly for the better, but some definitely for the worse. I need to find a way to express what it is to be a Nats fan in 2008 in our spanking-new ballpark. I just hope I find a way to do it that you, my readers, will find compelling.

*Yawn......*

What's that sound? Can you hear it? Could it be? YES! It's true!

Pitchers and catchers are reporting to Viera today. Spring training is beginning.

So it must be time for me to resume blogging about the Washington Nationals, too.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge could almost have been speaking about me when he wrote,
"All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair- The bees are stirring - birds are on the wing - And Winter slumbering in the open air, Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring! And I the while, the sole unbusy thing, Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing."

Before reality so rudely interrupted me after the end of the 2007 season, I was trying to tie things up and share my thoughts and feelings about the end of baseball at R.F.K. and say goodbye for the time being. I'd still like to talk about that, reminisce a little bit, and thank some people in the process, but that will have to wait for the weekend.

I must congratulate the more active Nationals bloggers (you know who you are) who have dutifully covered all of the hot-stove and other off-season goings-on and issues, the progress of the new ballpark's construction, and so forth. You have done what I simply could not, and done it very well. I love blogging about the Nationals, but the post-season demands of real life necessitated that I hang up the keyboard along with my hat for a few months. It was all about seeking some balance and tending to other areas of life. As Morris Buttermaker so memorably said to Amanda Whurlitzer:

MB: After tomorrow,we do what all ballplayers do...we shake hands till we see each other next season.  Then we go fishing or hunting,
make some personal appearances...get to know the wife and kids again.

AW: I don't have a wife and kids.

MB: Neither do I,but I got my pools to clean. You've got your maps to sell and your ballet to learn.

Well, I didn't clean any pools, but I had other things that needed doing, places to go and people to see. Now it's time to catch up.

Some quotes which really capture the mood I'm in right now:

O, wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
~Percy Bysshe Shelley

"Every gardener knows that under the cloak of winter lies a miracle ... a seed waiting to sprout, a bulb opening to the light, a bud straining to unfurl. And the anticipation nurtures our dream." ~ Barbara Winkler

Today, the excitement begins to build. Today, we start to get the daily updates from Viera. Today is where the 2008 season begins in earnest. Pretty soon, when the rest of the players report and Spring Training games begin, we get to look at boxscores again.

23 days until March 9th, when U.S. Daylight Time goes into effect, adding that wonderful hour of daylight at the end of our day (sunset that day around 7:30 EDT) and making us want to stay outdoors later.

35 days until March 21st, when spring officially begins.

44 days until Nationals Park opens and kicks-off Opening Day (yeah, I know, I have to fix my countdown widget. All in good time.)

There is much to be excited about. We'll talk about it soon. Stay tuned.

Oh, and Happy New Year.