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For Nats, It's Hard To Dig In
If anything, the players have the least to fear as they contemplate the future. As is the case throughout baseball, their comings and goings are dictated more by an increasingly open marketplace than by the philosophies of ownership. It is not uncommon for players on all teams to rent an apartment in the team's home city, but spend their offseasons wherever "home" is.
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VIDEO | Nationals Spring Training ON THE FIELD Jesus Flores' two-run, ninth-inning double gives the Nationals a 4-3 win over the Marlins. Notebook: The Nationals trade left-handed reliever Ray King, the most veteran member of their pitching staff, to the Brewers for a player to be named. Boswell: The statistics show a return to normalcy in baseball and the end of the Steroid Era. Minor Leagues: Justin Maxwell has come out of the slump he was in after straining an oblique muscle by sneezing and is now hitting .423 with 24 homers. NATIONALS REPORTBy the Numbers89: Errors for the Nationals through Monday. Through 138 games a year ago, they had 113 errors. Personnel Dept.OF Ryan Langerhans hit his first homer of a 14-game stint with Class AAA Columbus on Monday, just before he was called up. "I felt a lot more comfortable," he said. "My approach was a lot better." Langerhans will be used primarily as a defensive replacement. ... The club activated LHP Micah Bowie, who hadn't pitched in the majors since June because of a hip injury. ... The club announced that Centerplate would replace Aramark as the concessionaire at the new ballpark in 2008. Quotable"He certainly was a good influence on our young pitchers, had a lot to do with some of their developments. Our clubhouse was a better place with Ray King a part of it." -- GM Jim Bowden NATIONALS JOURNALBarry Svrluga provides the latest news on the Nationals. MULTIMEDIA Podcasts: Postgame audio from Barry Svrluga and video from Washington Post Live. Slideshow: A crowd of 40,389 pack into RFK Stadium to open up the 2007 baseball season. Photos: Manny Acta returns home. Webcam: Check back daily and follow the progress of construction on the stadium. |
"I spent five and a half years in the minors, always on the move," said Nationals reliever Gary Majewski, 25, a third-year player who rents an apartment in Washington. "Guys are used to moving around. You could buy a house somewhere, and -- bam -- you get traded."
In January, Nationals catcher Brian Schneider signed a contract that will keep him with the franchise for four more years, giving up his right to free agency, for which he would have been eligible at the end of the 2007 season. At the time he signed, the Nationals' future in Washington appeared more secure than it does now, but Schneider said he has no regrets.
"I just wanted to be with the Nationals," he said. "It's the only organization I've ever been with. This is just another hurdle in the road."
Meantime, Tavares, whose real home is in Lake Tahoe, Nev., laughs at the irony of living life like a ballplayer -- in an apartment in a city thousands of miles from home, with a roommate who is also a teammate, on a year-to-year lease.
Would he be living like this were it not for the Nationals' unique situation?
"I would hope not," he said, "unless my roommate were very beautiful, and as long as my wife didn't mind."
