Washington, D.C. (or is it Northern Virginia where most of the fans actually come from) lived without major-league baseball for 32 years before the Nationals came to town in 2005, by way of a failed Montreal franchise. After three seasons of home stands at the moribund R.F.K. Stadium, the team moved to brand-new digs at Nationals Park, a lovely venue in which to partake in the national pastime. After some terrible seasons, last year the Nationals were the champions of the National League East and had the best won-loss record in MLB. So as the 2013 season opened today, there are great expectations.
There is something endearingly cheesy and yet stolidly derivative about the Nationals’ iconography, beginning with the so-called “curly W” on the caps, a logotype which bears such an uncanny resemblance to the “W” used by the Walgreens drug-store chain that I’m surprised no trademark infringement action has ever been initiated.
I imagine the team’s mascot Screech is meant to be a bald eagle, because that would make sense. But the bird styles itself after the San Diego chicken.
Until this year, there were four Racing Presidents who would appear on the warning track during the 4th inning. The original Racing Presidents have been augmented by William Howard Taft (hereafter “Bill”). I don’t know the why the 27th president rates the same cachet as the Rushmore Four (“Abe,” “George,” “Teddy,” and “Tom”), although Bill was the only person to be a president and later a chief justice of the Supremes, but his controversial choice may be the kind of inside-the-beltway phenomenon better left to bickering cable-television pundits.
The marketing gurus in the front office are responsible for some fabulous flubs. The first one was a failed effort to get people to start referring to the District as Natstown; there are already far too many cloying euphemisms (the Nation’s Capital, the Federal City, the Most Powerful City in the World) for the name to catch on. The word on Natstown: not!
Later, the word “Natitude” became ubiquitous in promotional materials. I don’t think I have the versatility or panache to strike a pose that connotes much less oozes Natitude, but judging by the #NATITUDE hashtag gracing the outfield wall this opening day, the marketing department hasn’t given up on the concept. What a pity.
Pitching ace Stephen Strasburg started for the Nationals in their season-and-home opener versus the Miami Marlins (formerly from Florida) and pitched seven innings of shut-out baseball. At his first at bat Bryce Harper slugged a see-you-later solo home run, and farther on in the game smacked another homer just for good measure. (At this rate, Harper is on course to hit 324 home runs in this season of great expectations.)
Duly noted, there were 12 opening-day games played today, and each of them included a remembrance of the 26 victims of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown.
