Nationals, Back From the Dead

Apparently, baseball is back in DC (we've heard that before). I'm cautiously optimistic. But that's just part of being a DC sports fan. You can never be confident of victory until the final seconds have ticked off the clock, and the home team is comfortably ahead. 10 points in 56 seconds. It's my Alamo.

The deadline for the baseball deal is still next Friday, but the experts think baseball is on board with the latest proposal by the DC Council. Good. But I won't believe it until Regis brings in the New Year.

One final question on this fiasco, why is it that when DC politicians are involved, the mundane (a vote on bond funding, here) becomes farce:

"We sat down, rolled up our sleeves and got it done," said Mayor Anthony A. Williams of the three-cornered compromises made between baseball, the mayor and Cropp, who has crusaded to bring some degree of private funding into the ballpark deal. Even Williams, who has looked ineffectual in recent weeks, "underscored" the value that Cropp has brought to the process by "drawing international attention to this issue."

Part of the attention has come in the form of laughter and even mockery that Williams and his council can't stay on the same page or even in the same book on a huge deal. In major negotiations, who speaks for Washington? For now, the answer is, "You never know."

And farce becomes the surreal:

A one-vote margin to fund such a park, especially after a more than two-month public brawl, is practically an invitation to insurrection when three new council members, all anti-baseball, arrive in 10 days. Even as cheers for Opening Day at RFK Stadium in April are poised to burst from millions of throats, the return to the council of Marion Barry brings an almost surreal element into play.

The only thing in DC that's black and white are the race relations. It surely isn't anything the DC government touches.

IN OTHER DC SPORTS NEWS: At least it wasn't the punter.