Nationals Are Washington’s New Pastime

Even before President Bush walked to the pitcher’s mound Thursday night to throw out the first ball for the new Washington Nationals, a city usually intensely divided by partisan bickering instead was focusing on a single goal: getting good seats.

The lobbying game had moved from K Street to Robert F. Kennedy Stadium, but it was played the same way -- with reports of high-powered journalists, politicians and lawyers doing some behind-the-scenes horse-trading and calling in favors to get their season tickets a little closer to the field.

This being Washington, of course, politics was front and center as the national pastime returned to the nation’s capital for the first time since 1971. Some Democrats balked at wearing the new team’s hats -- a reprise of the old Washington Senator caps, bright red with a prominent “W” on the front. For them, vendors were marketing an alternative cap, with the initials DC.

And as with other significant events in the capital, the team’s home opener attracted its share of protesters.

But for the most part, a town known for power suits and tasseled loafers went gaga Thursday over 26 guys in baseball uniforms. The last time a president threw out the first ball at a home opener here, gas cost 36 cents a gallon, the videocassette recorder was just hitting the market, and Communist China wanted to join the United Nations.

For the president, the moment held remarkable resonance: When the Senators left town decades before, they became the Texas Rangers, of which Bush was later part-owner and managing partner.

“I’ve got a decision to make,” Bush said during the afternoon in a speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors. “Do I go with the fastball or a slider?”

When it came, Bush’s throw was neither, but it did cross the plate. Sporting a red National jacket, the president seemed to smile as he left the field for a bunting-draped box on the third base side. He watched about half the game with his wife, Laura, his daughter Jenna, other relatives and officials of Major League Baseball.

Throughout the day Thursday, the hunger for baseball in Washington was palatable. More than 1,000 business and community leaders paid $150 per person to lunch with the Nationals and to hear NBC News’ Tim Russert, who served as master of ceremonies, declare it had been 12,251 “long, lonely days” since major league baseball graced the nation’s capital.

If Washington was agog over its good fortune, the players were no less thrilled at playing for a town where people turn out -- even if they are elbowing each other for field advantage. For eight years, second baseman Jose Vidro played for the Montreal Expos, where fan attendance was so low that the team started playing home games in Puerto Rico.

“We’re all very excited,” said Vidro, the first National to show up at spring training in Florida this year. “I can’t wait to put on my uniform and show the people we’re here to stay.”

Being a political town, Washington likes a winner, so it expressed appreciation all day for Mayor Anthony A. Williams, a Los Angeles native who struggled for six years to bring baseball to Washington, and for Frank Robinson, the Nationals’ manager, the only player in major league history to win the Most Valuable Player Award in both the American and National leagues. Robinson, after a Hall of Fame career as a player, became the first African American to manage a team when the Cleveland Indians tapped him in 1975.

“This picks us up and puts us on a cloud,” he said of the day. Still, all the hoopla seemed to leave him a bit cautious.

He insisted that the lunchtime festivities -- in which the players entered a Convention Center ballroom behind the Shaw Junior High School Marching Band -- be kept to 90 minutes. He moved batting practice up half an hour and urged players to focus. He also cautioned them about early fan burnout.

“It will be interesting to see how many people will show up for the next game,” said the 69-year-old Robinson, who made his debut in baseball in 1956.

Actually, about half the stadium’s capacity are season tickets -- the 22,000 sold is among the highest in the league.

In the stands Thursday night, there was no shortage of political banter. Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) said he was happy that the Nationals were playing the Arizona Diamondbacks, home team of his GOP colleague John McCain, because “I wouldn’t miss a chance to see Sen. McCain’s team lose.”

And when Brad Wilkerson, the team’s lead-off hitter, spoke enthusiastically before the game, Washingtonians weren’t quite sure whether he was speaking in political or sports lingo. “We’re going to go out there and get a W,” he said. In baseball, that’s a win.

And that’s what Washington got, 5 to 3.