Washington – In a baseball town twice left for dead, the birth of the Nationals has put an endless smile on summer.
Although missing his two front teeth, 54-year-old entrepreneur Samuel Leon Bullock cannot stop grinning as a large crowd marches toward his pop stand outside RFK Stadium. In the capital of partisan politics, fans wear red caps and blue caps emblazoned with a script “W,” all of them united in support for their new favorite team.
“The way I look at it, anything that makes strangers jump around and scream together has to be good.” says Bullock, as spectators stream past him to catch a Thursday baseball matinee in Washington: first in war, first in peace and first in the National League East. “This old ballpark was all sad and lonely before the Nationals came here.”
Does a baseball team build up a community? “Yes, it do.”
The last time Washington won so big in baseball, the score had to be made up for “Damn Yankees,” the musical. And that success required a deal with the devil.
What these Nationals, who immigrated to D.C. from Montreal, with a layover in Puerto Rico, are now doing is stranger than fiction.
They were run out of Canada, the world’s most polite country. They play in a crumbling ballpark that can affectionately be called a dump. They cannot hit. They scrape by on a frugal payroll that usually dooms a major-league team to failure.
Yet, somehow, outfielder Brad Wilkerson, closer Chad Cordero and a bunch more guys you’ve never heard of have transformed a franchise recently considered worthless into the object of an ownership bidding war worth $400 million.
Only in America.
“This is a different place than the town that lost two baseball teams more than 30 years ago,” says Mark Tuohy, chairman of the D.C. Sports and Entertainment Commission that lured baseball back to Washington.
But every Cinderella story is as fragile as a glass slipper. Will Washington crack?
The Nationals are dancing as fast as they can to stay one step ahead of their divisional rivals, including Atlanta, which always seems to have the right answers when the school bells begin to ring at summer’s end.
After a 3-2 loss of missed offensive opportunities to the New York Mets, crusty old Nats manager Frank Robinson grouses that his players need to get fired up. This kick in the pants does not wear well in an uptight Washington clubhouse.
“I don’t know who says we’re not playing with fire,” an irritated Wilkerson responds. “We’re going out there and busting our butts.”
Washington desperately needs to acquire a big stick, whether it belongs to Colorado outfielder Preston Wilson or another slugger on the trade block.
“We have to scratch for every run,” says Nats third baseman Vinny Castilla, after crushing a second-inning shot that ran out of pop at the left-field wall for a frustrating double. “I think this is the biggest ballpark in America.”
So the Nationals must win the old-fashioned way, with a passion for doing all the small things that were so important before the ball was juiced, the hitters were chemically enhanced and stadiums of the 1990s were built as cozy as any backyard vegetable garden.
Flush the steroids from the sport’s system, and the game becomes more purely enjoyable. There is nothing artificial about the reasons for Washington’s success. Stout pitching. Smart situational hitting. Stellar defense.
For only about $500,000 more than the hopeless Rockies’ payroll of $48 million, Washington can buy something more than lame excuses for losing. Hope begins with attitude.
The taskmaster who demands the Nats play the right way is Robinson, approaching his 70th birthday and so old school that he was born before the Hall of Fame. Anybody who remembers the hard edge “Robby” put on the grind of a long, hot baseball season as a player knows why his team will fight to the finish or break down trying.
“I don’t reminisce,” says Robinson, who definitely has not mellowed with age. “I worry about right now.”
In the same ballpark where presidents John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon once sat, local Little Leaguers wearing their year-old Expos uniforms now stand and cheer. Perhaps 2.5 million happy, shiny faces will pass through the gates before the pennant race ends. Nobody, least of all commissioner Bud Selig, saw this coming.
It all feels too good to be true.
But, in the District, there is only one sure way to stay in power.
“Washington,” Tuohy says, “loves a winner.”
Staff writer Mark Kiszla can be reached at 303-820-5438 or mkiszla@denverpost.com.
