I know Washington is considered a transient city, but this is ridiculous. There are so many athletes going in and out of Washington this week, it has been the Grand Central Station of professional sports.
Doesn’t anyone stay in one place anymore?
Washington sports fans said goodbye to three Redskins who had spent a combined 18 seasons in uniform here — Clinton Portis, Andre Carter and Derrick Dockery.
It’s a bittersweet and conflicted goodbye because they did represent some stability for an unstable franchise at a time when players come and go. But those players also were part of one failure after another for this franchise during its dysfunctional years even if it was through no fault of their own.
Good team or bad team, Carter and Dockery were quality men during their time here and never embarrassed the fans. And Portis, a lightning rod, was the identity of the Redskins during his seven seasons here.
In a way, so was Mike Bibby to the Washington Wizards (maybe a more accurate name would be Lockouts; the team sure seems built for one), even though Bibby played just two games in a Wizards uniform.
Washington fans said hello and goodbye to Bibby in nearly one breath. He was traded from Atlanta last week for guard Kirk Hinrich, then played two games before he said he was willing to spend $6.2 million not to spend another day with the Wizards.
That’s why Bibby is the identity of this basketball team. He set the standard for what a player is willing to do not to play in Washington.
In case you didn’t notice — and I’m betting you probably didn’t — Washington also said hello to Maurice Evans and Jordan Crawford in the Hinrich trade and said goodbye to Hilton Armstrong. And then it was farewell to Al Thornton, who only had to forfeit a reported $400,000 to get out of a Wizards uniform — a bargain.
The door was swinging both ways for the Washington Capitals, who bid adieu to Dave Steckel and welcomed center Jason Arnott and defenseman Dennis Wideman in deals to bolster the lackluster play of a talented team in the final weeks before the Stanley Cup playoffs begin.
Perhaps the Caps also will find a way to make a move to get the 2007-08 Alex Ovechkin, who won every piece of hardware the NHL had to offer, and say goodbye to the 2010-11 Ovechkin, who is churning out half the production.
Meanwhile, the athlete most of Washington would love to say goodbye to remains. Reports are that the Redskins’ pride and joy, Prince Albert Haynesworth, isn’t going anywhere, at least for the foreseeable future.
Local waitresses and motorists remain in fear. Lawyers continue to celebrate. And the beat goes on.
Examiner columnist Thom Loverro is the co-host of “The Sports Fix” from noon to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday on ESPN980 and espn980.com. Contact him at [email protected]
