Dave G's Dugout: Nationals Park Ushers in a New Era of DC Baseball

The Washington Nationals christened their new stadium last night in what may just be the best game in Nationals/Expos history. President Bush threw out the first pitch and Ryan Zimmerman hit a walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth to give the Nats the win before a sold-out crowd in Nationals Park. The city is abuzz this spring with talk of baseball - something I haven't seen since the Nats came to town in 2005. Nationals caps line the streets, people are rooting openly for the club, and for the first time ever I was unable to get a ticket to a game. It seems that this new stadium has brought new life to what has always bordered on being a joke of a franchise. I'm looking forward to heading to Nationals Park next week and to seeing this team finally come into its own.

Still, as my friends and I were discussing today, Washington teams have some pretty terrible names. The Washington Capitals of the near-defunct NHL have the only good team name in the city and I've already expressed my feelings on the racist name of the Washington Redskins. As far as basketball goes, the Wizards is a ridiculously weak name for a pro basketball team, maybe the worst in the NBA. Washington went from the toughest name in professional sports (the Bullets) to perhaps the silliest with their current moniker. A wizard is no more than a fictional magician and no one gets intimidated by one of those. Plus, the mascot looks like a swastika. I'm just saying...

The Nationals, too, have a pretty bad team name. It seems like the easiest possible choice they could have made; the Nats reminds us more of an annoying insect than a dominating ball club. The Washington Senators is one of the classic baseball names and would have been an excellent choice this time around. We think of the Senators and we think of Walter Johnson, Harmon Killebrew, and Frank Howard. We think of national leaders sitting in shirt sleeves and breaking from the Hill while taking in a ball game. We think of old school baseball. The Senators had history. The Nationals have none. In the era of the Devil Rays and Diamondbacks, the powers that be could come up with nothing better to represent America's capital than the Wizards and the Nationals. Maybe it's just me, but they could do better.

Name aside, with the new stadium and young talent, it seems the nation's capital may finally be embracing the national pastime.