It had been 15 years since Capitals defenseman Tom Poti last swung a baseball bat as a high schooler in Worcester, Mass.
Poti and a few teammates, including captain Chris Clark, had the chance to step back into the cage on Monday night for a little major-league batting practice before the Nationals’ game with the New York Mets.
It was the second straight year a group of Capitals took some cuts at RFK Stadium on “Caps Night.” And while the consensus was they should probably keep their day jobs, it was yet another sign of the ties between two rebuilding franchises looking to stake their claim in the crowded Washington, D.C. sports landscape.
Nationals principal owner Mark Lerner and his family also hold a minority stake in the Capitals, so it comes as no surprise that the Nationals’ philosophy of building from the bottom up is similar to the one already put in place by Capitals chairman and majority owner Ted Leonsis.
“Both of our teams are focused on youth — building a foundation through the draft — and getting our business models aligned and working the team rosters for the long term,” Leonsis wrote in his personal blog earlier this summer.
That process inevitably means dealing with hard times, however. Since trading many of their veteran players late in the 2004 season, the Capitals endured the NHL lockout and back-to-back 70-point seasons. Only now, after adding three key free agents over the summer, including Poti, do they appear ready to make a postseason run. The Nationals, whose minor league system was barren when the Lerner family took over ownership from Major League Baseball last May, have already poured millions of dollars into scouting and the entry draft so they can build for the future.
“I know exactly what [the Nationals players] are going through. When a team decides to go with young guys you have to fight just to stay competitive,” said Clark. “It’s not easy. But hopefully it all pays off in the end.”
Nationals 12, Mets 4
In the game that followed, the Nationals blasted the Mets, thanks in part to four New York errors.
Reliever Jonathan Albaladejo earned his first major league victory with 1 1/3 innings of one-hit ball after taking over for starter Tim Redding in the fifth inning. The Nats (67-83) took the lead for good in the fifth on an RBI single by Wily Mo Pena. Nook Logan scored three runs for Washington.
Caps at the Ballpark
» Capitals Brian Sutherby, Steve Eminger and Matt Pettinger also took batting practice.
» The Caps and Nats might have another tie next season — a radio station. The Caps recently signed a two-year deal with WWWT, the 50,000-watt station that has broadcast the Nats since 2006. The Nats and station owner Bonneville are still negotiating a new long-term deal that would start next spring.
» Despite growing up in Worcester, Mass., Caps defenseman Tom Poti was not a Red Sox fan. Instead, Poti followed the lead of his father and grandfather, who both rooted for the Yankees because of the number of Italian-American players who starred for that team in the 1940s and 1950s.
