Let’s go 1-0 today
Saturday’s rally to celebrate the Washington Nationals World Series Championship was—intended or not—a masters class in leadership and team building.
All posts tagged: World Series 2019
And now we dance!
Scenes from today’s Washington Nationals World Series Championship Parade through downtown DC. N-A-T-S Nats! Nats! Nats! Woo! We ended up watching the parade from some steps along 6th Street, N.W., where it intersects Constitution Avenue at the National Gallery of Art. The souvenir vendors were out in force, including with the Baby Shark pin. After every Nationals home run from about June 1st on, the team would gather around the batter who hit the dinger and they would have a dugout dance party. Invariably, announcer F.P. Santangelo would say, “And now we dance!” Today was a home run to beat all home runs…and we all danced! A great way to end the most exciting year, and the most amazing month, of baseball in Washington, D.C. Congratulations to the World Series Champion Washington Nationals! More to come… DJB
They finished the fight!
Washington Nationals! World Series Champions!! Unbelievable!!! What an incredible run through the entire playoffs, ending with four road wins in Houston against the mighty Astros. I’m so happy for the only original National, Ryan Zimmerman. Stephen Strasburg as the World Series MVP is so deserving. Love all the “Los Viejos” (the Old Men)! And love all the kids as well! What a season. If you had asked me on Memorial Day… I could not have imagined that the Washington Nationals would make the playoffs, much less the World Series. I could not have imagined a kids song, some goofy sunglasses, and a home-run dance party serving as tools to loosen up a perpetually high-strung, under-achieving team and its Type-A personality fan base. I could not have imagined that the Washington Nationals would be described by one columnist as the only “likeable” team of the four left in the hunt during the League Championship Series. Does he know he’s talking about Washington, D.C., the city the country loves to hate? I could not have imagined manager …
Should I wash my socks now?
This morning, an interesting question popped up on my wife’s Facebook feed. “Now that the Nationals 8-game winning streak has ended, should I wash my Curly W socks that I’ve worn throughout the streak?” Baseball fever has swept Washington, even if the Nationals will not sweep the Astros in the World Series after last night’s 4-1 loss in Game 3. Superstition is a big part of the game, so the question was a serious one. My answer? Yes! Once a streak is ended, you need to shift to new gear so that the momentum can swing back your way. Luckily, I have enough Nats caps, t-shirts, hoodies, and jackets (at least two of each and more in some instances) to make the change easily. For all things streak related, I first turn to the best baseball movie ever, Bull Durham. There’s a famous scene about “respecting the streak” where Kevin Costner’s Crash Davis makes the point to Susan Sarandon’s Annie Savoy that players have to respect a streak…and should not change whatever they think is causing their …
Bumpy roads often lead to beautiful places
When much-maligned Washington Nationals manager Dave Martinez was asked how he felt after his ballclub just completed an improbable four-game sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals in the National League Championship Series (NLCS), he went back to something his mother told him: “Often bumpy roads lead to beautiful places.” Then, in light of earning the franchise’s first trip to the World Series, he added, “And this is a beautiful place.” Oh, is it ever! NLCS Most Valuable Player Howie Kendrick—one of 18 resident “Los Viejos” (the Old Men) on the Nats playoff roster over the age of 30—said, “I can truly say this is the best time of my career, the best moment of my career this year.” I can add that in my 55 years of being enthralled by baseball—beginning as a nine-year-old with a 1964 trip to Wrigley Field on a family vacation to see the Cubs play Bob Gibson and the St. Louis Cardinals; to following Willie Mays and the San Francisco Giants from afar, as a kid growing up in Middle …
More to Come... 