{image1} As I write this very sentence, my Washington Nationals are a staggering, rub-your-eyes-twice, 18 games over .500. The All-Star break is next week.
It's time to start believing.
In what? You know what. Believe the big dream. The whole enchilada. Yeah, I'll say it. W-O-R-L-D S-E-R-I-E-S.
Fine. I hear you. As Han Solo once said, "Go ahead. Laugh it up, fuzzball." I could care less. My feelings are simple on this. Why have a baseball team if you are unwilling to believe in it?
I know, I know. Believing in sports is quaint, and often foolish. Why leave your emotions hanging out there to be whacked with a fungo bat? Why give your antagonist/sports buddy a chance to bludgeon you later this summer by uttering totally ludicrous statements like: "I really think the Cardinals need to be worried about us if their pitching rotation doesn't line up just right."
Why?
Because you don't play the "Don't Pass Line" in Vegas with a hot table. You just don't. Oh sure, you can say how it's a smart bet that the table is BOUND to go cold very soon. You can cite statistics.
But when the dice are hot. You ride.
The dice have been so hot for my Nats that they are winning with two statistics that would be incredible if considered alone. But taken together, represent a sort of baseball karma that cannot - repeat cannot - be ignored.
The Washington Nationals currently lead the major leagues in....
a.) One run victories.
b.) Players who have appeared on the active roster.
Translation: injuries can't stop them and they win just about every close game.
Now, do you want to call that "luck?" Or do you believe in karma? My simple theory - karmically speaking, that is - is that the Gods of Baseball are exacting their revenge (or reward?) for a 33 year travesty perpetrated by Major League Baseball.
As a born and raised suburban Washingtonian, I was deprived of having a team to truly call my own for almost my entire life. Then MLB ran out of stupid ideas (Puerto Rico, "contraction," Nashville and Hampton Roads) for the Expos, and had no choice but to put them here against the blood curdling howls of Peter Angelos to the north.
The Gods, they were not amused. Washington, D.C. deserved a baseball team long ago. Now that we've got one, the Gods are on our side.
No, really. I do believe this. If nothing else, at least I do on some kind of Tom Cruise-ian level of crackpot theories about life, love, baseball and the universe. How else do you explain how the Nats are winning games these days?
They get home runs called back (twice), they pick runners off of third base by their catcher, they have a bullpen which routinely stitches together 4 innings of 3-pitcher relief. They have been swept just once. I mean, it's almost a joke.
But let me repeat. Eighteen games over. As Nats lefty reliever Joey Eishen might say - "Suck on that!"
Look, I know how these mid-summer baseball dreams vaporize in the dog days of August for overachieving teams. I know that a serious injury to one of the three pillars holding this team up - Jose Guillen, Livan Hernandez, or Chad Cordero - could put the club in a tailspin.
But here's some simple math. If the Nats just play .500 the rest of the way, they are a 90 win club. And 90 wins puts you in every Wildcard discussion until the last weekend of the season.
Here's what this Nats team has going for it.
1) An inning eating stud of a #1 pitcher in Hernandez. Roll him out every 5th day. Score two runs. Win game. Nice.
2) A reliable closer in Cordero.
3) A power guy with average in Guillen.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Karma, baby, karma.
There are even parallels between this year's Nats team and the 1989 Baltimore Orioles. Those O's were just a somewhat changed club from their 0-24 start team of the season before. That team featured Cal Ripken, and the following riffraff.....
Bob Melvin, Randy Milligan, Billy Ripken, Craig Worthington, Phil Bradley, Mike Devereaux, Joe Orsulak, Larry Sheets. The top three starters were Jeff Ballard, Bob Milacki, and Dave Schmidt.
That team won 87 games and finished 2nd in the AL East. Oh yeah, their manager was a guy named "Frank Robinson."
Spooky, eh?
No other sport but baseball offers teams that can overachieve to this degree. None. In football, it's all about staying healthy, having a QB who won't kill you, and getting a few breaks. In basketball, it's all about talent. No team of scrappers gets by on "chemistry" and "motivation" in the NBA. Hockey sometimes has fluke teams, but they usually ride a stud goalie for two months.
Baseball is special. It just is. These dumb things happen. A city that waited 33 years, and a club that endured the humiliation of playing regular season games in a place where cockfighting is more popular than baseball, are converging for something special.
Maybe it's RFK karma rubbing off. Old Redskins glory, that has yet to be fully shook out of the rusted and peeling crevices of the beloved old stadium hard on the East Side of Capitol Hill.
My team has no real owner yet. We are orphans of the state. So what? We don't need no stinkin' owner. Why wait until George Soros and company get the team, and load it up with expensive free agents?
The time is now, because it is getting too late in the summer to simply say: "Gee, I hope we can at least finish 3rd." This is why you are baseball fan, right? To be stupid, hopeful, braggadocios, and ready for magic.
To quote Jake and Elwood: "We're 4.5 games up in the division. Guys are getting healthy. It's 80 games to October and we've got one pack of smokes. Hit it."
Steve is a native Washingtonian and has worked in sports talk radio for the last 11 years. He worked at WTEM in 1993 anchoring Team Tickers before he took a full time job with national radio network One-on-One Sports.
A graduate of UC Santa Barbara, Steve has worked for WFNZ in Charlotte where his afternoon show was named "Best Radio Show." Steve continues to serve as a sports personality for WLZR in Milwaukee and does fill-in hosting for Fox Sports Radio.
