Why The Washington Nationals Won The World Series

I caused it.  Yes really...  

Yoy know how some people think that if they root for the home team and wear all the team stuff, it helps the team win?  Even if you just watch the team on TV?

I'm the opposite.  If I wear team stuff, they lose.  If I watch the game, they lose.  If they are winning 4-1 went I'm not watching, they get to losing 5-4 if I watch.  The same thing happens with mens or womens Univ of MD basketball.  If I watch, they lose.  If I come back, they are winning.  If I keep watching, they get behind again.

I know that is all rubbish logically, but the pattern persists.

At the beginning of the last year season, I bought a team hat.

The Nationals went to 19-31.  I stopped wearing it, and they won the World Series.  Is that evidence or what?  OK, it isn't, but the hat sat off my head all after and they won...

And as the announcer says "and another curly W is in the books"!

I will continue to not wear the hat next year...

US Baseball World Series

In a little over an hour, the Washington Nationals and the Houston Astros are going to start game 1 of the US Baseball World Series (I phrase it that way because "they" call it "The World Series" even though the Rest Of The World is not invited and that annoys me).

However, this is the 1st time the Washington Nationals or the team they came from (the Montreal Expos) have ever appeared in the World Series.

I am a pessimist when it comes to local sports teams.  When they have a good year, they struggled.  Even when one occasionally wins some championship, it is "just barely" and certainly not repeated the next year.  Some cities have sports dynasties that last a decade.  On rare occasions, we get "a year".

I am accustomed to seeing the local teams choke.  But The Nationals have gotten this far and hope springs eternal...



Midnight update:    ------  We won...

Washington Nationals Baseball

The Washington Nationals, my local team, swept the St Louis Cardinals 4 games to none to win the National League Championship.  They will be playing in The World Series in a few days.  It is the first time a Washington baseball team has competed in The World Series since 1932.

The Washington teams have a long history of failure.  The joke used to be (playing on George Washington) "Washington, First in War, First in Peace, and Last in the American League". 

Teams moved away to other cities.  IIRC, one team became the Minnesota Twins, one later became the Texas Rangers, and the area was without a team for about 30 years.  I moved to this area the year the last team left, so I never had a local team.

The current team came from Montreal where the fanbase vanished after years of failure.  It was so bad, the MLB actually took over the team and moved them to Washington DC and sold them to a local wealthy family group in 2005.

The first years were difficult but the the new owners dedicated themselves to improved organization, new players,  and built a minor league farm farm system from scratch.  They traded for and drafted young players showing talent, hired creative coaches and managers, and treated players well with long contracts and fair pay.

The Nationals have experienced considerable success in recent years, winning division titles in 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2017, and winning the National League pennant tonight.  Some players have been with the team 10 years and new players have joined the team with great success.

One aspect of the team that impresses me is that the players enjoy playing together.  Good hits result in the player getting a "whole team dance" when he returns to the dugout.  And it doesn't matter if someone can't dance well so long as they try enthusiastically.  The excitement is contagious.

The Nationals started out the season badly.  They were 19-31 at one point and were written off by all the professional sports commentators.  And then things changed.  Injured players started returning.  The manager pushed 2 phrases:  "Tomorrow we go 1-0" and later "Stay in the Fight".

In August and September, the Nationals caught fire.  From failure, they became the hottest team in baseball.  They earned a Wild Card one-game playoff spot and won that.  Then they beat the LA Dodgers who had won 106 games (serious lots of wins). 

They earned the right to play the St Louis Cardinals who have a lot of experience in recent playoff games and won that series.  They not only won, they killed them.  They held the Cardinals to no earned runs for 35 innings.  The Cardinals got 4 runs tonight, but the Nationals had gotten 7 in the 1st inning. 

They will now play the winner of the NY Yankees and Houston Astros in the World Series.  I have no idea what will happen, of course.  But the Nationals have won something like 15 of their last 17 games and they are ready to play anyone.

If they lose, they lose (one team has to), but it has been a fabulous comeback from a bad start.  Whatever the outcome, I will remember this season.

Washington DC has a history of losing teams (other than the football team back in the 80s).  But the Washington Capitals Hockey team won the championship last year, the Washington Mystics Womens Basketball team won the championship last week, and now here come the Washington Nationals into the World Series...

It actually feels rather weird to think of Washington DC as a sports powerhouse...

I'm not actually much of a sports fan.  I don't watch games between top teams.  I do watch local sports teams when they are doing well.  Yeah, I'm a "Homie". 

But I'll watch every minute of the World Series games.  Because things like that don't come around often...

Baseball

The Washington Nationals have been having a fabulous year so far.  They had a winning percentage of over .700 going into a road trip against 3 of the best teams in both leagues.  They went 5 and 1 against the 1st 2 teams.  So they went to play the Chicago Cubs.  Apparently, that was the first time to teams both playing over .700 had met in decades (50 years, 80 years, something like that).

The Nationals lost all 4 games.  Hard-fought games are nice, but splitting them would have been nicer.  Sometimes, a team plays well and just loses.  The Nationals hit slashing line drives - directly to fielders.  They hit long right to the outfield walls - just within jumping reach of the outfielders.  When they hit to the corners of the outfield where no one could catch them, they were a foot foul.

The Cubs were so afraid of Bryce Harper, they walked him 6 times in one game.  It would have been 7 ( a record), but one pitch hit him on the foot.  He got on base 7 of 7 times in one gamne and not a single one counts as an official "at-bat"!  He was walked 18 times in a 4 game series.  The Nationals lead several of the games, but lost in the last inning of each.   Hey, that's what WE normally do to other teams.

Those Cubs are GOOD!  I won't deny that at ALL!  But that's a harsh way to lose a series.  Can you imagine having a 19-12 record and being in 2ND PLACE?  This is going to be one HELL of an exciting season if things keep up like this!

Better news.  One of our pitchers, Max Scherzer, struck out 20 Detroit  Tigers tonight, tying the record...

Waiting For...

Baseball season to start on April 1st... 

The last-Fall-planted tulips to bloom...  The buds are up on short stems, but that's good enough for the 1st year.  The wire cages they are planted in should give them protection from voles and squirrels for many many years to come. 

The last-Fall-planted daffodils to send up blooms.  Just small leafs so far.  And being toxic to nibbling varmints, they don't need cages...

The last-Fall-planted hyacinths to show up at all.  Not a leaf in sight yet...

Next week's seed-planting inside.  This time of year, there are always something to plant each week inside or out.

The wind to die down tomorrow.  I need to spray liquid corn gluten before the lawn soil warms up more.  The corn gluten stops seeds from sprouting.  The past 2 days were so windy, I couldn't spray it without the spray drifting to the vegetable garden and I have lots of seeds to plant there before the inhibitory effect ends in 6 weeks.

The NCAA basketball tournament to end.  It's painful.  The U of Maryland Men's and Women's teams had such high promise this year, but things didn't go their way.  They sure gave us exciting seasons though...

Cleaning the riding mower.  I figured out a way to elevate the riding mower to clean the underside of grass clippings and get at the blades to sharpen them.  You can't exactly tip a riding mower on its side to do that.  But I have ramps that will let me get at the underside.  I always did, I just didn't realize it.

Pruning low-hanging tree branches.  I finally got the chain saw blade on again and adjusted.  I have a LOT of branches to remove.

Seeing the first dandelion flowers.  I bought a COOL TOOL that lets you step on weeds, pry them up, and just flip them away.  I tried it out on some other weeds and it works GREAT!  Not an ad, just an appreciation for a good tool.

Fiskars Deluxe Stand-up Weeder (4-claw)

BTW, you can't just pull up dandelion plants and leave them to die.  The stems have enough food to ripen the seeds.  So you have to bag them...

Time to shift from long-sleeve flannel shirts to short-sleeved cotton.  It's "iffy" this time of year, but short-sleeve season is coming and I love the free-arm feeling.

Open doors!  The cats will love it and so will I.  It doesn't last long though.  Around here it goes from 50 to 80 in a month.  I can kill the occasional wandering wasp...

A warm day to wash the car outside.  It needs it.  At 11 years old and only 24K miles, I want to keep it looking decent.  A new one would have too much computer nonsense in it.

I'm sure there is other stuff, but memory fails after 5 am...

Baseball And Other Sports

I've been interested in baseball on and off my whole life.  I played Little League baseball at ages 9-12, but was poor at it.  Well, I was a small kid.  I got put at 2nd base (which was where you put the 2nd worst player - the worst got put in right field) because I was quick "enough" and could manage to throw the ball to 1st base.  I couldn't hit.  My recollection is that the bat seldom got off my shoulder (the one hit I recall was a "Texas Leaguer" just into the outfield where no one was and Dad went wild with joy that I actually made a hit).  So I was no natural at the game.

I did make an unassisted triple play though.  Bases loaded...  I somehow snagged a line drive over my head (jump high, stick glove up, ball finds glove),  and the runners didn't know it.  I stepped on 2nd base(force out) and tagged out the runner coming from 1st base.  My one claim to baseball fame and obviously I will never forget. 

I quit the next year.  Some kids had gotten so much bigger and stronger.  I couldn't even see a pitched ball, and it wasn't that I needed glasses!  They were just too fast for me. 

Forward to when I was 18, working in a Navy office before entering College.  I had had what passed as my "growth spurt" (reaching a whole 5'6" and 135 pounds), but I had played 3 years of golf, tennis, and soccer in High School.  So I had gotten a lot more coordinated and wiry.  All the offices had slow pitch softball teams in the Navy Base league, and the Directors were always begging for employees to join the team.  Well slow pitch softball is an entirely different game!  And I discovered I had a TALENT.  With a slow pitch, I could hit a ball wherever I darn well wanted to (between short and 3rd, between 1st and 2nd, over the right fielders head, etc).  And amazingly, those "splendid physical specimens of young Navy guys*) couldn't. 

Because they were all 6' tall, 180 lbs, and they just smashed the ball blindly...  Usually straight up, or to the shortstop who always caught the ball.  And the one thing I HAD gotten out of playing 2nd base in Little League was how to manage the game itself.  I played both 2nd base and catcher in the Navy softball league, and I instinctively understood where everyone should be.  I knew when to run out to catch a relay from the outfielders, and where to throw it afterwards.  And the same when playing catcher.  It just seemed so obvious.  That's probably the only reason I played 2nd base in little league.  THAT part, I understood.


* I'm not being sarcastic.  The actual Navy guys on the team were years beyond me in growth and strength at my same age.  They had to be to be accepted into the Navy.  Any 2 of them could have tossed me around like a dodgeball. 

I mention all this only to explain that I have suddenly started watching professional baseball again.  I watched pro football on and off; the Washington team had some good years.  It hard not to admire the skills of coaches like Vince Lombardi, George Allen and Joe Gibbs.  But I don't watch football with much understanding of the game.  Same with basketball.  Both are just chaotic, as far as I can tell. 

Baseball is different.  Each player has a position.  Each player has a responsibility to act individually, but for the good of the team.  Each player has an individual at-bat against an individual pitcher and not ONE of his teammates can help him in the least.  When yous are at bat, you are basically ALONE.  You, vs 9 guys in the field trying to catch anything you hit...

I LIKE that!  In baseball, you can like hitting, fielding, or pitching.  My brief moment of time in the game, I came to like hitting best.

So...  The Washington Nationals baseball team seem set to get into the playoffs as (possibly) the best team in baseball right now.  Its been a journey.  At the All Star break, they were about .500.  They are at .574 today.  Which means they are playing above .600 since. 

The Nationals are surely going to enter the playoffs.  And I am thrilled with that! 

So why do I care?  I care because they field spectacularly.  I care because they pitch wonderfully.  I care because they hit amazingly.  But mostly I care because they seem to be the savviest players on one team since before my time!  They always seem to make the right choices on the difficult plays.  I admire that most of all!

I've never had a home baseball team to like.  I left Boston just too young to care about the Red Sox.  We lived in Virginia, which has no professional baseball ream when I was 13.  We moved to MD too far away to like the Baltimore Orioles  (my friends did, I didn't).

And in Washington DC, there was no professional MLB team between 1969 and 2004.  So I'mnew to this Home-Team stuff.  I just like the Washington Nationals because they play REALLY GOOD!!!  And I admire THAT.

So I am LOVING this season for the Washington Nationals.