THE ARGUMENT AGAINST writing the column you are about to read is that no 
one cares about the Nationals, but that is precisely the point.
After four years, baseball in Washington is an unqualified flop.
Since Oriole Park at Camden Yards opened in 1992, no stadium has drawn fewer fans in its inaugural season than Nationals Park. For the record, 17 parks have debuted in that time span.
Baseball's magic formula says the last-place Nationals were averaging 29,077 fans per game — the 20th best in the majors — as of Wednesday. (Thursday was to be the home finale, weather permitting.) Anyone who's actually been to a game or watched one on TV — we'll get back to that subject — knows that far less than that fill the seats.
Any report you hear about TV ratings shows greater disinterest than the previous bleak news. Just this month, only 6,000 people tuned into the Nationals game on the same day as the Redskins opener. More people probably watched C-SPAN.
The Washington Post even reported that the radio audience is so small that the ratings aren't statistically valid.
A dreadful team is to blame for most of this, and the Tampa Bay Rays' success offers hope that D.C. can one day drum up support for a winning team.
Let's be realistic, though. The Nationals are going to stink next year and probably the year after that. Attendance will only drop, and fewer people will bother searching for MASN to watch the games on TV.
It took 33 years to bring baseball back to D.C. It took four to get bored by it.
Photo by Toni L. Sandys/The Washington Post
I MAY NOT be the sharpest tool in the shed, but I do understand a few things.
I'm aware the Nationals came to D.C. three years ago basically barren of talent. Building through the farm system is a good idea, as is trying to develop a group of good, young pitchers who are still in the minor leagues.
I'm confused, though, about why the team keeps getting worse. It's not like General Manager Jim Bowden trades away decent players for prospects. In fact, I wish he would — rather than foolishly sign the likes of Dmitri Young and Cristian Guzman to extensions.
HAVE YOU EVER lost touch with a friend for a while — not because you had a fight, but because there just wasn't a whole lot of news to report?
This, I think, is similar to the problem facing the Washington Nationals.
According to a study released this week, an average of 9,000 fans tune in to the Nats' televised games each night. Not only is this by far the lowest number in major league markets, but it is also significantly less than the number of fans who watch D.C. United play that other football.
Some will say D.C. is showing why it lost two baseball teams already. Others may argue this city is full of fair-weather fans just waiting for a winner.
There may be some truth to both explanations, especially the latter, yet I don't think either gets at the real heart of the matter.
This current team is lousy and, worse yet, boring. It was boring last year and two seasons ago, too. Only the remarkable first half of the inaugural year brought any real excitement.
Fans have settled into a routine of not watching the Nationals, whose games were not even televised regularly until the second season, when the going got tough.
Baseball fans exist here, as Washington draws three times its TV audience at home games. The new park is nice, and taking in a live game is always fun.
Sitting on a couch trying to figure out which MASN channel the hometown team is losing on isn't nearly as fun.
"Same old Nats" should be the team's motto. When the team changes its fortune, fans will change the channel and catch up with their friends.
Photo by John McDonell/TWP
RIDING THE METRO home Saturday night, I was washed away in a sea of orange.
Orioles fans were everywhere in a city that's supposed to be a Nationals town.
I don't know where they've been the past few years — perhaps creating Peter Angelos voodoo dolls — but it appears the Washingtonians who cheered for the Birds when D.C. had no baseball team still exist.
And, more importantly, their team is better and more interesting to watch than the Nationals.
The enormous crowds at Nationals Park over the weekend hinted at the potential of a real rivalry.
But let's not kid ourselves. The Orioles fans were not showing up at the new stadium hoping to see the home team beaten to a pulp.
They were taking advantage of the chance to see their team without having to drive up Interstate 95.
I admire the Orioles fans' loyalty. There really is no reason they should stop cheering for the team they favored growing up even though another team has moved closer to home. And if you stick with a team as painfully pathetic as the Orioles have been, more power to you.
Once the O's and Nats start fielding good teams, some passion might emerge from both sides about the outcomes of their interleague series.
This weekend, though, it was nice to see that park completely full of baseball fans — even if orange was mixed in with the red.
Photo by John McDonnell/TWP
FROM THE RIDICULOUS to the sublime, the debate over the designated hitter is back at baseball’s forefront.
There shouldn't be any argument about it. There's no need for a player who can't play the field, just as there's no cause for a pitcher to be completely hapless at the plate.
Let's start with the preposterous case of Yankees ace Chien-Ming Wang, who, incredibly, managed to land on the disabled list because running the bases seemed too difficult.
After Wang sprained his right foot, Yankees owner Hank Steinbrenner blamed the entire National League — in which the DH mercifully doesn't exist — and called for the senior circuit to join the American League in using designated hitters.
FIFTY-FOUR AT-BATS. Seven hits. A .130 batting average.
For the better part of a year, those numbers were rolling around inside Kory Casto's head.
When the time comes that he puts away his glove and spikes, would those be the sum of his major-league accomplishments?
In 16 games in last April, that's all Casto managed before being sent down to Triple-A. A well-rounded career in the minors -- in which he was twice named the Washington Nationals' Minor League Player of the Year -- doesn't mean a thing if you don't take advantage of the opportunities you're given. And Casto hadn't.
He went down and struggled in Columbus, too, batting just .246 with 11 home runs. He'd averaged .280 and 20 home runs over his previous two seasons.
"Last year, obviously, when I got sent down, I was trying to do more to get back and it just put me deeper in a hole," he said. "And it just kind of spiraled down from there."
Continue Reading "Curtain Call: Casto Hopes to Make Most of Second Chance" »
IT'S NOT TRUE THAT the Washington Nationals' new promotion is to give a free bat, a glove and a spot in the starting lineup to the 20,000th fan through the gate each night.
It just seems like it.
The Nats' roster has been in constant flux most of the season with injuries and ineffectiveness leaving the team with a disappointing record and a spot on the National League East's bottom rung. Nowhere has it been more apparent than in the team's offensive performance, the one area where an improvement was expected.
But you only have to scan the training room to understand.
"I'm not here to make excuses, but when you lose your third, fourth, fifth and sixth hitters in the lineup, it doesn't matter what team you are; you're going to scuffle a little bit," manager Manny Acta said.
THE BOSTON CELTICS managed to stave off a late push by the Los Angeles Lakers to hold court at home in the NBA Finals, while the Washington Nationals continue their cold streak at the plate as the weather heats up outside.
More surprisingly, Big Brown laid an egg at the 140th running of the Belmont Stakes, and in Paris, Rafael Nadal cruised to his fourth straight French Open victory, surprising no one.
Join Express' Ian Herbert and Matt Swenson, to discuss the eventful weekend that was in the world of sports.
WHEN EMMANUEL BURRISS WAS FASTER and better than everyone he played as a member of the Wilson Tigers high school baseball team, enough people took notice that he landed a Division I scholarship.
Burriss raised even more eyebrows playing for Kent State in Ohio.
Yet it was the 2005 summer in the prestigious Cape Cod League, in which he shared playoff MVP honors, when the D.C. native caught enough scouts' eyes that the San Francisco Giants made him the 33rd overall pick in the 2006 draft.
"That was the turning point," remembers father Allen Burriss of the pivotal summer.
And this weekend, the proud dad can watch his son play in the city where he grew up when the Giants visit the Washington Nationals for a four-game series.
"It looks like it's really going to happen," Allen said Wednesday.
Continue Reading "Local Giant: Burriss Is the Pride of the Tigers" »
THE ONLY THING CAPABLE of slowing down Jesus Flores this season has been a vicious foul tip straight into his face mask. And even then it took two of them off the bats of Arizona hitters to drag Flores from the game.
Opposing pitchers haven't been able to keep the Nationals' second-year catcher down. Nor has Washington's front office, which as recently as April wanted to keep him in the minor leagues, convinced that the 23-year-old needed more seasoning.
A Rule 5 draftee, he hit .244 in spot duty last year. The Nationals wanted him to play every day this year but figured the only place that would happen would be in Triple-A Columbus. They signed free agent catchers Paul Lo Duca and Johnny Estrada to handle the big-league pitching staff.
Flores took the decision in stride but didn't necessarily agree that he wasn't ready for the majors.
Continue Reading "Big Shot: Nats' Flores Is Hard to Keep Down" »
Addison Road
