Baseball’s Opening Day was last Thursday, or—if you want to be a stickler about it—on Wednesday, March 20th when the Dodgers and Padres played the first ever regular season MLB game in Seoul, South Korea. Right on cue the game’s biggest star was embroiled in a betting scandal.

As I wrote back in 2021, turning sports stadiums and arenas into casinos will not end well.

But back to Opening Day. The full complement of teams played last Thursday, MLB’s official Opening Day, while the Nationals first home game is today, April 1st. Given both the struggles of the club’s opening weekend in Cincinnati and the longer-term challenges with the team as a whole, it is okay to focus on the fun of home openers. I don’t expect that fun to last.

Our Nats, you see, have finished last in four straight years immediately after winning the 2019 World Series. That’s “the first time that has happened since . . . ever.”

On Opening Day in Cincinnati, the Nationals starter Josiah Gray was rocked for seven runs in four innings. But that wasn’t the worst of it. Two hours before the first pitch the Nationals third baseman, Nick Senzel, broke his thumb fielding a ground ball. And they can’t even manage a decent retirement agreement with their 2019 World Series MVP. In an impasse with Stephen Strasburg, the club placed him on the 60-day IL.

They bounced back to triumph in the second game and were one strike away on Sunday from earning their first season-opening series win since 2018 and their first over-.500 record—at any point—since 2021. Alas, a double and back-to-back home runs—the last a walk-off—ended that dream.

It hurts just to type this stuff. But the Nationals are where they are today because of bad ownership decisions. In a “grading the owners of area sports teams” column, retired dean of Washington sportswriters Thomas Boswell is generous when it comes to the Lerners.

The Lerners—“C’s,” to be sure—still run the Nationals. You could do better. But Washington almost did a lot worse last year when (Ted) Leonsis bid more than $2 billion to buy the team. Sometimes you don’t know the bullet missed your head until it hits the wall behind you.

Boswell was right to point out that at least Ted “DraftKings” Leonsis didn’t get his mitts on the Nationals.

For years I considered Ted Leonsis a harmless “C” of an owner. Unfortunately, Leonsis has devolved into a sports-arena-as-casino, District-dumping “D” who’s working on his “F” résumé. Money-loving double-talking blowhards are so common in sports ownership that D.C.-area fans should probably expect one Leonsis on the scene. At least he’s just distasteful, not despicable.

I think Boswell could have said much more about the Lerners, and I have. After they traded generational star Juan Soto, Kevin Blackistone took the forceful case directly to the owners in 2022.

We enriched the Lerners through taxes to build the stadium and this season by shelling out $279.30 on average for a family of four to watch the worst team in the game. The owners promised last year that they were rebuilding—quickly—around Juan Soto when they traded off the core of their 2019 World Series championship team. Then they broke that promise earlier this week. Their “stewardship” of the team (and I use that term loosely) has led to what may be the fastest fall of a World Series champion in history.

Have you heard that last line before?

All of which made the news about the sale of the terrific, young Baltimore Orioles so wonderful. As Brittany Ghiroli wrote in The Athletic, Thursday’s Opening Day represented the “Next Chapter” for the Orioles in so many ways.

[A] new ownership group—led by Baltimore native David Rubenstein—was officially unveiled to the media, making a day always charged with emotion one the city will perhaps never forget.

The reigning American League East champions, with reigning Manager of the Year Brandon Hyde and reigning Executive of the Year Mike Elias, had new ace Corbin Burnes on the mound, the kind of frontline starter the Orioles have long craved . . . 

There is the on-field team and its successes, coming off a 100-win season for the first time since 1980. The Orioles are brimming with young talent, from reigning Rookie of the Year Gunnar Henderson to franchise cornerstone Adley Rutschman.

But even more important is what Rubenstein knows about the responsibilities of sports owners. This proud product of Baltimore public schools understands the city. Adding franchise icon Cal Ripken Jr. as part of the new ownership group “is the kind of slam dunk the previous regime resisted.”

I have met David Rubenstein on several occasions, as he was a generous supporter to several National Trust historic sites. He doesn’t mince words.

Listen to what he said.

Baltimore is a unique city, I know the pluses, I know the minuses, I know the challenges, I know the opportunities. And we have now a political team in the city and the state that I think can really help make this city live up to all of its potential. I hope the Orioles can play a small part in that. I hope what can happen is that the Orioles can, by winning, by unifying the city, by recovering the kind of greatness that it had in 1966 or ’70 or (’83), we can win a World Series again.

Rubenstein and Gov. Wes Moore “have a clear rapport built from a friendship of more than 20 years.” Rubenstein “made it clear: He owns the Orioles, but they belong to the city.”

“This is more than a baseball team,” Moore said. “The Orioles are the soul of Baltimore . . . This team reminds us of what we are made of.”

What a refreshing concept. Someone who sees stewardship of a sports team as involving the fans, the city, the citizens, and its elected officials. I have a feeling that I’ll be traveling north a few times this year to take in this great, young team that still plays in one of the most iconic “new” stadiums in major league baseball.

“I don’t want (Opening Day) to be the high-water mark,” Rubenstein said. “I want the high-water mark to be in the fall when we go to the World Series and we show what we are. A city that supports a great team … a city that is represented by a great team. And we unify the city in a way that only the Orioles can really do.”

Opening Day. Hope springs eternal.

More to come . . .

DJB