Can You Smell the Hot Dogs?
Baseball season gets under way in a matter of days. And at last DC has a team!
Click here to see the Washington Post preview of the Nationals, and for those still able to tolerate Peter Angelos, the Orioles.
Tony Kornheiser wonders, how should Nationals fans react to this team and, by the way, who the heck are these guys?
On the calendar, it says Opening Day is less than one week away. And the home opener at RFK will follow shortly after. I'm very excited about going to the home opener. But I don't mind telling you I'm nervous, too. I've never been to a real major league baseball game in Washington before. What if it doesn't work out? I don't know where I'll sit. I don't know who I'll be next to. I don't know what to wear.
O's 1B Rafael Palmeiro opines about the taint the steroids scandal has left on an entire era of baseball.
"In my opinion, everyone that plays baseball in this era has been tainted," Palmeiro said. "Not just the people that he has named in the book, I think this whole era over the last 10, 15 or 20 years has been tainted. Regardless of whether you did or you didn't do anything, this whole era will have that label."
O's P Matt Riley goes the way of Rocky Coppinger: once touted as the next Roger Clemens, now a bust and a former Oriole.
Riley, 25, was the favorite to become the Orioles' No. 5 starter, but he posted an 11.57 ERA in seven innings this spring.
David Brooks faces a dilemma.
And yet we are the playthings of fate and lead lives filled with strange twists, and I (for it is time to throw off the artfully constructed mask) now find myself contemplating the uncontemplatable: that I will switch my allegiance from the beloved Mets to the new team of my adopted town. I will become a fan of the Washington Nationals.
Already I feel the tug, the love that dare not speak its name. I own several Nationals caps. Some friends and I have bought season tickets.
In the midst of this spiritual crisis I have begun to ask the fundamental question. What is the nature of the loyalty that binds us to our teams? Can a team be tossed aside even though it has given you (especially during the 1970's) some of the worst years of its life?
And finally, just a little quibble with the baseball scheduling committee. In Chicago, almost like clockwork there is a baseball game occuring in town any day between Opening Day and when both teams break out their golf clubs at the end of September (or a little earlier if you're Sammy Sosa). When the White Sox are in town, the Cubs are on the road and vice versa. If you can't find an MLB game occuring within the city limits between April 1 and September 30, you just aren't trying hard enough.
So in a couple weekends, I thought about checking out an early season game out here on the east coast. The Phillies, Orioles, and Nationals are all within a two hour drive of my house. But somehow, none of them are playing at home during the weekend of April 9. What gives? The Mid-Atlantic region for one weekend will be entirely devoid of pro baseball! Don't they have supercomputers that can solve this problem?
Anyway, it may come to pass that my first game this season will be of the Blue Rocks variety, rather than the MLB variety. But come to think of it, the learning curve will be just as big with my Nationals as it will be with my local single A affiliate.
Just like Tony K. I will be wondering, who the heck are these guys?
Click here to see the Washington Post preview of the Nationals, and for those still able to tolerate Peter Angelos, the Orioles.
Tony Kornheiser wonders, how should Nationals fans react to this team and, by the way, who the heck are these guys?
On the calendar, it says Opening Day is less than one week away. And the home opener at RFK will follow shortly after. I'm very excited about going to the home opener. But I don't mind telling you I'm nervous, too. I've never been to a real major league baseball game in Washington before. What if it doesn't work out? I don't know where I'll sit. I don't know who I'll be next to. I don't know what to wear.
O's 1B Rafael Palmeiro opines about the taint the steroids scandal has left on an entire era of baseball.
"In my opinion, everyone that plays baseball in this era has been tainted," Palmeiro said. "Not just the people that he has named in the book, I think this whole era over the last 10, 15 or 20 years has been tainted. Regardless of whether you did or you didn't do anything, this whole era will have that label."
O's P Matt Riley goes the way of Rocky Coppinger: once touted as the next Roger Clemens, now a bust and a former Oriole.
Riley, 25, was the favorite to become the Orioles' No. 5 starter, but he posted an 11.57 ERA in seven innings this spring.
David Brooks faces a dilemma.
And yet we are the playthings of fate and lead lives filled with strange twists, and I (for it is time to throw off the artfully constructed mask) now find myself contemplating the uncontemplatable: that I will switch my allegiance from the beloved Mets to the new team of my adopted town. I will become a fan of the Washington Nationals.
Already I feel the tug, the love that dare not speak its name. I own several Nationals caps. Some friends and I have bought season tickets.
In the midst of this spiritual crisis I have begun to ask the fundamental question. What is the nature of the loyalty that binds us to our teams? Can a team be tossed aside even though it has given you (especially during the 1970's) some of the worst years of its life?
And finally, just a little quibble with the baseball scheduling committee. In Chicago, almost like clockwork there is a baseball game occuring in town any day between Opening Day and when both teams break out their golf clubs at the end of September (or a little earlier if you're Sammy Sosa). When the White Sox are in town, the Cubs are on the road and vice versa. If you can't find an MLB game occuring within the city limits between April 1 and September 30, you just aren't trying hard enough.
So in a couple weekends, I thought about checking out an early season game out here on the east coast. The Phillies, Orioles, and Nationals are all within a two hour drive of my house. But somehow, none of them are playing at home during the weekend of April 9. What gives? The Mid-Atlantic region for one weekend will be entirely devoid of pro baseball! Don't they have supercomputers that can solve this problem?
Anyway, it may come to pass that my first game this season will be of the Blue Rocks variety, rather than the MLB variety. But come to think of it, the learning curve will be just as big with my Nationals as it will be with my local single A affiliate.
Just like Tony K. I will be wondering, who the heck are these guys?
posted by Mike C | 8:20 PM
1 Comments:
Boy, you're making me hungry...
René C. Kiesler
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