Nearly 50 years ago Vince Lombardi said, “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.”
While somewhat redundant on its face, he likely meant making the effort to win is the only thing that matters.
Recently, the Nationals are not only making the effort to win, they’re actually winning most of the time, creating this conundrum: When does winning lead to overall fan disappointment?
Answer: When ownership has already decided to break up the team and build for the future.
We’ve all known for quite some time that, once real ownership arrived on the scene, the everyday Nats’ roster would change quite dramatically, with many veterans sent packing in exchange for prospects to refurbish a once-fertile-but-now-depleted farm system. The Nationals have been the hottest team in either league as of late. They’ve caught the Braves and have an upcoming schedule that seems to promise more of the same.
Yikes.
If we’re to believe the national baseball pundits, everybody — save Ryan Zimmerman — is available for the right price. I seriously doubt that’s the case, but if you look no further than the starting rotation, it’s easy to speculate names like Livan Hernandez and Ramon Ortiz will be attractive to contenders in either league looking for help down the stretch. In the bullpen, lefty Mike Stanton is a 39-year-old journeyman, and Jon Rauch has been consistent all year — they’re going to be in some demand. In the everyday lineup and off-the-bench category, names like Alfonso Soriano, Jose Guillen — who’s already played for seven teams — Marlon Byrd, Royce Clayton, Marlon Anderson, Damian Jackson, Daryle Ward, Matt LeCroy — I’m likely leaving someone out — can all be key contributors on teams in pennant races.
If the Nationals blow past .500 between now and the All-Star break and move into wild card discussions, it’s going to be a bitter pill for many Nats’ fans to swallow when management turns over personnel and they fall back to the pack.
Some fans may recall the trading deadline in 1997, when the appeared-to-be-contending Chicago White Sox sent pitchers Wilson Alvarez, Danny Darwin and Roberto Hernandez to San Francisco for a package of prospects. The deal helped the Giants win their division, but it took the Pale Hose a number of years to recover. Some South Side fans still resent the deal almost 10 years later.
New team president Stan Kasten is known as a guy who makes a plan and sticks to it. I doubt he thought the Nats would turn things around as quickly as they did, but I guarantee you it changes nothing. The Nationals’ farm system is a shell of what it used to be. Long term successes like Atlanta are due to careful planning and staying the course.
Regardless of who’s still around in September, it’s like what Lombardi meant: making the effort to win — for years to come — is the only thing.
Phil Wood has covered sports in the Washington-Baltimore market for more than 30 years.
