Center Field Gate

What’s so astonishing (well, at least to me) is that Nats fan Steve Krupin — the subject of a cheeky Sports Illustrated commentary on the fortunes of fate (and what it means to be a fan of the Anacostia Nine) – sits just one row ahead of me in Section 129. It’s not that I know or have met Steve (I don’t and haven’t), it’s that if Steve had followed my lead he would have seen some of the best baseball the Nats played all season. Krupin, the man that SI has dubbed “the unluckiest fan in America,” saw 19 Nats game this season — and they lost every single one of them. He was zero for nineteen.  Oh-fer? “That’s the risk you run by being a sports fan,” SI quotes Krupin as saying.

Yeah, Steve, that’s right: you should have come to games with me — I had much, much better luck. I attended 29 Nats games this year, and in those 29 games the Nats were 8-21. And in those 29 games they were outscored (get this) 110-52. 0-19? That’s nothing. Try 110-52. And of those 29 games (and this really gets me) seven, all of them losses, were decided by one run. It’s a small sample, to be sure, but emblamatic: it doesn’t take a Steve Philips to figure out that the Nats’ problem in ’09 was the jaw dropping apocalyptic collapse of their bullpen. Actually, that’s not true. In order for a bullpen to collapse, the Nats had to have one in the first place. They didn’t.  

There were some great moments, of course. Let’s see: there was Adam Dunn’s 300th in July, three towering chandalier scrapers (all by Dunn) that same month, an Austin Kearns grand slam against the Marlins in early August (we’ll never see that again), a 9-2 domination of the Showboats that same week (how the hell did that happen?), a dead-to-center shot by Ryan Zimmerman in early September (this is all from memory), and the Justin Maxwell grand slam walk-off in the final home game. All memorable, all rare — and one (one!) that was unforgettable. That’s not so bad, I suppose, for being a fan of the worst team in baseball. After all, I could be 0-19. Then too, having been a fanatical Cubs fan for some 45 years (and knowing, just knowing, the whole time), I figure there’s at least one thing worse than being the fan of a last place team — and that’s being a fan of a team that will never, ever . . . ever. The Cubs are great entertainment: if you love soap operas. So Ted (and Stan and Mike), you’ve got me for another year. But just one more. Honest.

Will I Dream Dave? We have received an overwhelming reader response to our lack of posts lately. One of our fans (Suzie, who reads us in Brazil — no kidding) writes: “Where have you guys gone?” Well, Suzie: while the season isn’t over for the Phuzzies, Jeters, Belinskis or Trolleys, it’s over for the Nats, so we’ve been slowing down. But that’s all we’re doing. We’re not going away, we’re slowing down. After 8-21, we deserve it. We’ll be up to three or four posts a week (and we’ll provide our own pithy comments on the course of the post season) until Spring Training — when we’ll be back every day. In fact, we’ve been interviewing a whole new set of writers for next year.