Let Us Now Praise the Washington Redskins

At 6:30 on Sunday evening, in the top of the eighth inning at Camden Yards, with the score 6-1 in favor of the New York Yankees, there was considerable shuffling in the lower box seats, as hordes of Washington lawyers who have Orioles season tickets began scurrying up the aisles, toward the exits and I-95 South. Although the game would not end for almost an hour, that marked the official closing of the baseball season for Washingtonians-who can spot a loser when they see one.

So (cue the coronets): LET FOOTBALL BEGIN!

The Redskins are 5-1. That is not a typo. They are 5-1. They have won five games in a row for the first time since 1991. Perhaps you remember that season? It featured a large, recreational vehicle that carried thousands of people to Minneapolis.

Alas, as that gritty defensive back, George Harrison, once observed, since then it’s been a long, cold, lonely winter. In the past three seasons the Redskins have won 13 games and lost 35. There is a word for this. It is “puke.”

So for the Redskins to start out a season 5-1 is remarkable. But what’s more remarkable is that it has gone without the usual chest-thumping exuberance. This is Washington where there is no baseball (excuse me, but they’d be the Baltimore Orioles), where the basketball team spends considerably more time in hospital gowns than in uniforms and where the hockey team is as predictable as grilled cheese. Yet there is no heat coming off the street about the 5-1 Redskins. A few years ago you could have boiled water on the corner of Connecticut and K from the steam when the Redskins were 5-0.

Some of this unusual ennui stems from the Orioles being in the playoffs, which temporarily siphoned interest from the Redskins. More of it stems from the early season schedule that was as easy as Sunday morning. Bears (2-5), Giants (2-4), Rams (1-5), Jets (0-7). That schedule is so soft Mark Duffner could have written it. But the chief reason Washingtonians have been generally reluctant to stand on a rooftop and shout that the Redskins are really good is the fear of being burned again. It wasn’t that long ago that Richie Petitbon’s Redskins opened up on a Monday night with a 35-16 scalping of Dallas, and got this city all juiced up -- then lost six in a row. (Perhaps you remember Richie’s catchy phrase, “That’s the way it goes, babe.”) Fans here landed harder than Goldie Hawn, Bette Midler and Diane Keaton did on that scaffold in “The First Wives Club.” Then, following two miserable years, fans began grasping. So last season spirits soared after an opening day rout of Arizona, 27-7; this could be the end of the drought! The word “playoffs” actually came out of the owner’s mouth. (You know I haven’t heard from The Squire in a while. Jack, how’s Coco?) It turned out to be a mirage, as the team lost five of the next six games. Which explains why the city has been slow to grasp the Redskins to its bosom this year.

And so we are all proceeding cautiously. We’re trying not to fall into the trap of aiming too high. Publicly, we try to diminish expectations-much like candidate Dole does going into the debates. We tell ourselves: “Sure, the defense looks good so far, but wait ‘til Favre and Elway and Marino get a shot at it.” (They don’t.) Or: “Sure, Gus looks sharper each week, but what if the O-line falls apart, and Terry Allen’s knee gives out?” (Hmmm, I hadn’t thought of that. What if Norv becomes a Trappist monk?) By poor-mouthing the team we cushion the blow if the Redskins collapse.

Privately, though, everybody’s looking at the schedule, trying to find five more victories to get to the playoffs. Let’s see: The Giants here, this Sunday? Arizona twice? At Tampa Bay? Dallas once? That would make 10. Not Dallas? Indianapolis here, maybe? Everybody’s trying to count to 10.

Beating New England was the first substantial step the Redskins have taken to persuade us that this is not an illusion -- that all the ingredients for a good team are right here in the bag, and all we have to do is shake and bake. (You’ll notice these are kinder metaphors than were used early after the Philadelphia game, when many fans wanted to stuff Norv into a trash compactor.) The toughest stretch, though, still lies way over the ridge: In a span of 12 days in November, the Redskins play at Philly, here against the 49ers, and at Dallas. Winning any one of those games will certify the Redskins as a good team. The only way you can ever get to “great” is to go through “good.”

The Orioles were a good team this year, but they were one-dimensional. They didn’t tend to the basics like great teams do. They couldn’t manufacture runs with a walk, a stolen base and three base hits. They either got their pitch and slammed it to the airport, or they sat down. The Yankees are a far superior team to the Orioles, particularly in the bullpen. “They played flawless defense,” Orioles pitching coach Pat Dobson said admiringly. “They never gave us an extra out.” (For those of you despairing that irony is dead, the Yankees even out-homered the Orioles in the playoffs.) The Yankees take care of all aspects of a baseball game. They seem to have been put together from an engineering blueprint, while the Orioles seem to have been put together from a pictorial in a muscle magazine. They’re all mass, and not much mobility.

Over the past few weeks owner Peter Angelos has gotten credit, rightfully so, for resisting his manager’s and general manager’s advice to trade David Wells and Bobby Bonilla (who, until his last at-bat against the Yankees was Bobby O-nilla). Without Wells and Bonilla the Orioles might not have made the playoffs.

Angelos’s nemesis, George Steinbrenner, also made a couple of personal, instinctive moves. He brought Doc Gooden and Darryl Strawberry to the Yankees when nobody else in baseball would have either one of them because of their long histories with drugs. Predictably, Steinbrenner was accused of exploiting them for publicity purposes. But over the course of the season Gooden won 11 games, and pitched a heart-warming no-hitter. And against the O’s, Strawberry hit three homers and batted .417. Without Gooden and Strawberry the Yankees might not have made the World Series. Somebody should have said something nice about Steinbrenner in this regard. So I just did.