You gotta hand it to the Washington Nationals. They are making an effort to become part of our local community.
Before noon Tuesday, a Nationals player is scheduled to read to students at Kimball Elementary School, on the city’s troubled east side not far from Nationals Park. As part of “Reading Is Fundamental” day in D.C., nine Kimball students will be honored before Tuesday night’s game against the Pittsburgh Pirates. For fans and kids, the pre-game show might be the highlight of the night; too often this season, what transpires on the diamond has been pure minor league.
But it could be a fair fight; both the Nats and the Pirates currently dwell in the cellar of their respective divisions.
Look north to Baltimore, and you will see another bottom dweller. The Orioles, once the pride of Charm City, have turned into perennial losers.
Why are our teams so dreadful? Is it the water, the fans, the players, the coaches? When it comes to Major League Baseball, Sports Illustrated says it’s the owners.
In listing the “Five Worst MLB Owners,” S.I.’s Web site ranked Orioles owner Peter Angelos the worst, for his “notorious meddling.” Our Ted Lerner ranked No. 5. This is not a list you want to make. There are 30 owners; Lerner’s been at it only two full seasons, yet he already gets a Bronx cheer from the sports mag.
“Despite a new park within district limits,” the mag writes, “the Nats are as lowly as they were when they left Montreal.”
S.I. throws in the black mark of the “bonus-skimming scandal,” in which a hot prospect from the Dominican Republic hoodwinked the Nats about his age and walked off with millions of dollars for him and his agents.
Forbes magazine says the Nationals franchise has declined in value. “Blame the Lerner family,” it says, because its members “furnish one of the league’s lowest payrolls despite a new, taxpayer-financed stadium.”
This sour press will no doubt open the door for naysayers who will remind us that forking over $611 million to pay for the stadium was a rotten deal for D.C. taxpayers. Other cranks will whine that D.C. can never support a major league team. This is the third try, after all.
Angelos deserves the bottom-rung ranking. He’s owned the Orioles since 1993 and spent the last 16 years “stripping down one of baseball’s proudest franchises.”
The Lerner family deserves more time. They are new at this game. They are starting to make the right moves. They signed franchise player Ryan Zimmerman to a solid, long-term contract. They brought on slugger Adam Dunn. They have a rising star hurler in Shairon Martis.
But the team’s fielding and bullpen are miserable. The first can be fixed with practice; the Lerners need to spend some money on their backup pitching staff.
And it would help their ranking among fans and the community if they would become more accessible.
Taking a few pointers from the Capitals’ owner, fan fave Ted Leonsis, might be a good idea.
