Well, the Nats won the pennant last night. I watched them run out to a 7-0 lead and then nervously went to bed hoping a repeat of 2012 did not happen (when they were ahead of this same St. Louis team 6-1, I went to bed, and woke up to watch them cough up the lead (and the series) in the 9th inning).
Growing up in Washington without a baseball team was no fun, and of course, the team did not move to the nation's capital until a year or so after I had moved to New Jersey. But I have followed them closely, first just because we finally had a team, through the lean years, and then the myriad of gut punch playoff losses once the team became a perennial contender. Mostly, they have been a team you can root for - the owners are not assholes (like Dan Snyder), although they can sometimes be pennywise and pound foolish, the players are also not assholes (at least now that Bryce Harper left town ha ha) and this year's Baby Shark movement with Gerardo Parra has revealed an unmitigated glee among the players that did not exist in prior years. When Parra, then Anibel Sanchez, and finally Max Scherzer all smothered Stephen Strasburg in a hug after his 7 innings of dominance Monday night, it was just great.
DC fans get dinged for not being sufficiently passionate or ~ unknowledgeable ~ about baseball, you know, failing to properly applaud a good sacrifice or when a runner takes an extra base, but that all seems like sour grapes now. That Harper, now marooned in Philadelphia for another dozen years getting heckled every time he goes 0-for-3 having to watch his former mates win the NL title is icing on the cake. He may one day have a celebration like this too, but for now, it feels particularly sweet.
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