By Gabe Oppenheim
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 14, 2008
In the dog days of August, real Nats fans are the ones who love the team not for its performance but for its very existence. They are men, mostly middle-aged, who had a team named the Senators taken from them once. And they are men, mostly clad in red, whose goal is to prevent that from recurring. So they believe in a kind of baseball karma, in a universe of what-goes-around-comes-around, in which the meek will inherit the Earth.
Or, at least, the pennant.
How else to explain their gathering yesterday morning in the ESPN Zone downtown, when about 70 fanboys of various ages sat around circular tables, waiting for a noon Q&A session with pitcher John Lannan? In a strictly rational world, such a gathering could not take place, for according to strictly rational statistics, the Nats are the worst team in baseball.
And yet, there they were, Gary and Yates and Ed and Ray and Jeff -- three of whom own season tickets. They have gotten to know each other well through these sessions with their Nats. This is the fourth of five meet-and-greets in 2008, and they've been to most of them.
"You gotta stick with 'em," says Yates Haigler, who still wears his tattersall button-down shirt and took the rest of the day off from work. Gary Markwood sports his red Nats jersey, red Nats bracelet and black Nats watch. And has a Nats lunch bag slung over his shoulder. Tufts of gray hair poke out from under his red Nats cap, like a baseball-loving Einstein.
They are the lowliest players on the diamond, these Nats, but "not in our hearts," says Ed Hale. He is 48, a middle school teacher from Arlington, who sees the Nats winning it all in 2010 and has carried his paraphernalia into class to coax his students, in vain, to share his passion. "I'm still happy to have a team. They're going to get better. I believe that."
"You wait 33 years for a team," adds Ray Mitten, 47, in a Nats cap and watch, "winning is not your first priority. Just following a team when they win -- what's the point ?"
So they break bread together, chowing wraps and burgers and fries. Markwood can't even order before being halted by his regular waiter, who says, "I already knew you wanted a Southwest [chicken salad], glass of water."
They exchange the knowing lines that signal membership in this club and escape the rotten record of the present. "We took them out of it, the Nationals did," Markwood says. "That was sweet." And he is not talking about Tuesday night's loss to the Mets, but a happier time, when his team beat the Mets in a 2007 series down the stretch.
"Did you go last night?" he asks Hale. "No, but I saw that catch Willie Mays-style," answers Hale, referring to a play made by the far less eminent Willie Harris.
Mitten remembers the "most moving moment" -- the first opening day in Washington, back in 2005. And Hale recalls the time they reeled off 10 straight wins. And Markwood drifts back to Ryan Zimmerman's walk-off homer against the Yanks, on Father's Day in 2006, in front of the largest crowd for a Washington baseball game since the boys returned: 45,157.
The Nats were down 2-1 in the ninth and put a man on base, and Zim's dad predicted it, and the ball cometed over the fence. And the players mobbed home plate, and the fans roared, and Zim came out for a curtain call, the first in Nats' history.
Just how bad have the Nats been this year? Entering their home game against the Mets Tuesday night, they had the worst record in baseball and a .217 batter hitting cleanup, and one of their only feats is leading the league in getting hit by pitches.
The Nats could assemble a better lineup than their current one from the disabled list, which includes two pitchers, two outfielders and three infielders, one of whom was dismissed to get in shape and stabilize his blood sugar. But perhaps third baseman Aaron Boone is their player who has sunk the lowest.
Boone was supposed to be the one appearing yesterday at the ESPN Zone. He has had free time since injuring himself in early July when he strained his left calf not playing but jogging to first base to insert himself in a game as a pinch runner (to replace another injured player). "Please, no questions on how much I can take," manager Manny Acta said afterward -- but it wasn't even the oddest injury in the cosmic career of the 35-year-old Boone.
In Game 7 of the 2003 American League Championship Series between the Yankees and the Red Sox, Boone hit a walk-off home run in the 11th inning to clinch the pennant for the Yanks, thus perpetuating the Curse of the Bambino. Boone became known as "Aaron [expletive] Boone" in New England and a legend in New York. Then he quickly dropped from hero to zero.
Playing pickup basketball in the off-season, in violation of his Yankees contract, which also forbade logrolling and luge, he busted his knee. The Yanks cut him, and, to replace him at third base, traded for Alex Rodriguez, whom the Red Sox had tried to get.
The rest was karma: The Sox reversed the curse, winning the 2004 American League Championship Series after the most improbable comeback in history against the Yankees, who haven't won jack with A-Rod, who started carousing in New York, thus resulting in the end of his marriage and a spiritual liaison with Madonna.
So Aaron Boone wound up with the Nationals, scheduled to appear in the ESPN Zone. But then he injured himself again, and had a rehab game Tuesday, and now here is Lannan, 23 (yes, the Nats have to use backups even for PR appearances). Lannan was ejected from his Major League debut, in pure Nationals style, for hitting two batters in a row.
The talented young southpaw, in jeans and less Nats apparel than his fans, takes his seat in a blue-and-red leather Nats recliner.
And the men ask questions and answer some, winning tickets to a game they would have attended anyway.
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