Why Our Nation's Capital Needs Baseball

Human Events, Oct 18, 2004 by Heller, Dick

A Sports Columnist Looks Forward to Next Spring

Regardless of what the cynics say, there is indeed something new-or almost new-in Washington, D.C., Major League Baseball.

In the larger scheme of things, perhaps it doesn't matter that much. Politicians will still politicize, lobbyists will lobby and commentators will point with pride or alarm. And of course, campaigns for the next election will begin as soon as the last chad has dropped in this one.

But I'll tell you what: Major League Baseball means a lot to me-and to a lot of others who are in or approaching their golden years.

This is our sport. Many younger people, we know, prefer the nonstop action of football, basketball or hockey-and surely we can appreciate those, too. But when all is said and done, we'll take baseball, with its quieter, more leisurely pace and the built-in time it affords for conversation and contemplation.

Have you ever tried to converse or contemplate during, say, a basketball game? With rock music blaring over the P.A. system during timeouts and the crowd or broadcaster shrieking in your ear, you might as well attempt to pray inside the gates of Hell.

OK, so I exaggerate a little-but you get my meaning.

Baseball has its thrilling moments, too: Pitchers recording strikeouts with a 3-2 count, two out and the bases loaded, batters whacking horsehides into the stratosphere (or, in the case of the bulked-up Barry Bonds, into San Francisco Bay), outfielders scaling the walls like mountain climbers to take away home runs.

But watching a game at the ballpark also offers simpler pleasures, like spending $5 for a soggy, cold hot dog and having the vendor toss it to you so that the mustard drips all over your shirt when (or if) you catch it. And there is ample time to talk to your companion, or an adjacent fan you don't even know during what often seem interminable delays between pitches. You can discuss the game itself or, if it's a blowout, the history and tradition of a sport so rich with both. I saw my first game at Washington's old Griffith Stadium in 1949, and the chances are pretty good that I can find another senior citizen who remembers heroes from that era: Mickey Vernon, Eddie Yost, Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, Al Kozar.

Al Kozar? He was the deservedly anonymous second baseman on the '49 Washington Senators, who inexplicably won nine straight on a Western trip that May and came home to (honest) a parade down Pennsylvania Avenue and fans carrying homemade signs proclaiming things like "We'll go far with Al Kozar."

Unfortunately, the Senators finished dead last with a record of 50-104, and when manager Joe Kuhel was invited to seek employment elsewhere, he delivered a classic quote: "You can't make chicken salad out of chicken feathers." Some earwitnesses thought Joe said something other than "feathers," but I wouldn't know about that.

The point is that I remember all this more than a half-century later, and I've told it to my sons. They won't repeat it to their children, though, because by then they'll have baseball stories of their own.

Two versions of the Washington Senators have left town, and when the second club moved to Texas after the 1971 season, I thought we'd have another team quicker than you could say, "Short to second to first-double play!" Instead, for 33 years, fans in the Nation's Capital have had only three choices: Ignore baseball, adopt the Baltimore Orioles up the road or leave a light burning in the window for another team in D.C.

Now the transplanted Montreal Expos are coming to town, playing for three seasons in 44-year-old RFK Stadium until a ballpark can be constructed on the Anacostia River waterfront in Southeast Washington. The last time I saw a team playing with "W" on its caps, I was a young man. The next time I see one, I'll be eligible for Social Security. But I'm lucky. Some fans gave up hoping long ago. Some defected to the Orioles or the teams of their youth.

Some died.

So I'll be at RFK next April-rooting for a team in the National League, eating those disgusting hot dogs and complaining about the price of tickets and concessions. But it won't matter, because my sport has come back to me.

Mr. Heller is a spans columnist for The Washington Times.