This is a bit of a controversial subject, but once again I feel the need to bring up why I am rapidly losing interest in the Washington Nationals and being a supporter of the team. I have never been one to subscribe to the idea that you should just remain totally loyal to a failing franchise and shut up about their problems and support them because if you don’t you aren’t a real fan. I think just the opposite is true; anyone who is a real fan of this team should be absolutely disgusted by the state of the Nationals. I think voicing and acting on that opinion is really the only way to get anything to change in the way this team plays and especially in the way this team is run. They are a joke and an absolute embarrassment to baseball.
I happened to move to DC right when the inaugural season of this team was about to kick off, I still remember that Preston Wilson hit the first ever HR for the Nationals. I was excited by the fact that finally after almost 10+ years of being in places without a MLB team, I would have a team in my hometown and I quickly became a fan. That first year team, playing at a wreck of an old stadium, managed by Major League Baseball which had decimated the team and its farm system and coming off a final year in Montréal in which nobody cared about the team at all, and full of players whom nobody had ever heard of managed to finish the season at 81-81, right at .500. This was a great success and I really thought that maybe these guys would actually be able to be good in a few years. Boy, was I ever wrong. Every single since then they have finished worse than they did that first season, that is simply inexcusable. In the four years that the Nationals have been in town they have had 5 all star players, they have traded away or just let go three of those players. Can anyone explain to me how when you are trying to build a team, you get rid of the guys who made the all-star team? Lets examine the reasons why this team finds itself as the sorriest excuse for a professional sports team outside the Detroit Lions.
First and foremost are the piss poor player personnel decisions, this team has repeatedly traded away or just let go the consistent, everyday type players while taking wild gambles on unproven and incredibly inconsistent project players. So far, none of these players has panned out. Elijah Dukes only shows up once every few weeks, Lastings Milledge is a bust, Austin Kearns is a joke who doesn’t even start anymore, and Felipe Lopez was an error machine who they actually gave up on. This team has had almost 5 years to get its shit together yet still finds themselves as the worst team in baseball. The Tampa Bay Rays went from laughing stock to AL champions, the Nationals have gone from .500 ball club to worst team in baseball in the same time frame. Another problem with this team is the blasé, soulless fan base. You show up to a game at Nationals Park and you are more likely going to find A) More fans of the opposing team there and B) Those that aren’t, are too busy checking their blackberrys all game long as opposed to paying attention to the game. The typical “Nationals Fan” would rather talk to you more about the 5th district congressional seat in Kentucky than who should be the 3rd starter in the rotation. In short, it’s a casual and not very knowledgeable fan base and it really kills the atmosphere of a Nationals game, which brings me to another complaint, the ballpark itself. Nationals Park is like the playboy centerfold of stadiums, quite nice to look at, but utterly devoid of personality and uniqueness, and extremely expensive. $7.50 for a Bud Light? C’mon guys, I know it has the fancy logo on it and all, but give a guy a break its hard enough to watch this team play.
There are certainly many more problems I could bring up from firing Frank Robinson, the piss poor marketing of this team, the crappy TV coverage (why do I only get like 10 HD games all season?), the lackluster and unimaginative giveaway promotions, and the list goes on and on. The bottom line though is this team has gotten progressively worse from a team that was 81-81. When do the excuses stop? When does this fanbase start holding this team accountable for its terrible performance? Until I see some marked improvement in this team I will not be buying any game tickets more expensive than the cheap seats. I will not be purchasing anymore merchandise of the team. I will not be going out of my way to catch the games on crappy SD on MASN2.
I hope you are listening Nationals, because Im the kind of fan you want. Most of this fanbase doesn’t care enough about this team to even be angry at the state of it, I do. Its pretty sad when the one thing you have done right in almost 5 years was the racing Presidents. Shape it up Nats, and quickly because my money and my interest is rapidly turning up I-95 to Baltimore.
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