This is rock bottom, right? I have to think that after a humiliating butt-whipping like that, highlighted by no one catching any baseballs, things were tense in the locker room. Maybe some personal issues that had been simmering for years boiled over, like Tyler Moore took a swing at Jose Lobaton because of the time they were at the mall together and Lobaton ran into some of his friends from Tampa and ditched Tyler.
Artist's conception of the Nationals hitting rock bottom at the hands of the Red Sox as John Farrell looks on
And then after they pull Moore off of the backup catcher, a grizzled veteran stands up. Slowly, since he's all covered in ice packs because he's so grizzled. I'm thinking Craig Stammen.
So Stammen says something about how it hasn't always been easy playing for the Nationals. He's had to deal with leather pants, fireworks going off course and exploding the fire chief, and even the FBI poking around. But none of that was as humiliating as Mookie Betts stealing second and then just helping himself to third because there wasn't anyone there. Does this team even have any coaches, Stammen wonders aloud.
But look, Stammen says, visibly restraining his emotions, this could be our last chance, and I'm not going to sit here and watch you guys blow it by being completely terrible all the time. It's time for us to band together and learn about teamwork! It doesn't matter if you're about to be a free agent and can't wait to get out of here, or if you look like a little kid, or even if you're Dan Uggla. Together, we can do this!
And then everyone says "Yeah!" and Lobaton and Moore hug and then the song kicks in and we get a montage where the Nats win twenty in a row, interspersed with hilarious lighthearted pranks and capped off by a scene where it's the World Series and we're playing Boston and we redeem ourselves by not letting Mookie Betts pants us and we win!
So that's something to look forward to, and it all starts tonight.
I've been thinking about archaic grammar and how it relates to the Nationals. Our old friends the ancient Greeks had a number between singular and plural - the dual. It pretty quickly fell into general disuse and came to be used only for things that were usually found in twos, like twins or plow horses or testicles. If ever an ancient Greek could come up with a sentence that included a phrase like "the twin plow horses' testicles," he was credited with a Triple Greek Score and got free desserts for life.
I've been contemplating this because the limitations of the English language make it hard to write about the Nats. When you say "Nationals fans," it's problematic. We learned last year that Nationals TV ratings are small, so tiny that it was posited that they must have been the result of a misplaced comma or a couple of delinquent zeroes. Using the plural of "fan" is an insult to the very concept of the plural AND fails to express the author's scorn at the serious crappiness of Washington's reaction to getting its fourth (more or less) major league team, but using "fan" is pushing it too far. Obviously, there's more than one. Not many more, but more.
That's my problem; the Nationals' problem - as represented by the ratings issues - is being addressed by an aggressive rebranding. Maybe you've noticed that the Nats have taken on an edge lately. You have the acquisition of Elijah Dukes, you've got the FBI investigating the team for filching money from hopeful, fresh-faced Dominican teenagers, and now you have the new color commentator, Rob Dibble.
I'm not quite prepared to complain about this. For one thing, I've never actually heard Rob Dibble: Broadcaster. Maybe he's good. Every piece of evidence argues against it, but stranger things have happened. From the Nats' standpoint, the point is that he's not Don Sutton. I liked Don Sutton. He was even-keeled and intelligent, he had a soothing voice, and he didn't inflict an obvious catchphrase on us. Now we have this:
As edgy as a special guest verse from Fred Durst
See that? The shades, the phony snarl? The bat, which represents his truly impressive hitting record (3-25, .120) and the microphone, which represents his equally impressive talking record? That's branding. This ain't your daddy's color commentator! We're not in Kansas anymore! It's like if the X-Games and Mountain Dew and Poochie the Dog came together and took the form of a gel-haired jackass! Etc., etc.
And don't think it's not intentional. MASN interviewed, among others, Buck Martinez, whose musky, scotch-soaked elegance has fallen out of fashion ever since Ricardo Montalban passed away. Clearly, Buck's status as the best-dressed man in baseball (seersucker? Yes! White after Labor Day? No!) just doesn't fit in with the Nationals' current attitude, which emphasizes informality and malfeasance.
See, that's class right there.
Hence Dibble. It might not be that bad. Maybe he'll spend the season browbeating Bob Carpenter because he didn't play the game and doesn't know how to man up and strap it on or whatever (I'm expecting hits from some pretty hair-raising Google searches based on that wording, by way). Maybe he'll just complain for seven months (this is known as the industry as "Blogger-Style"). Or maybe he'll just be completely terrible. Regardless of the actual outcome, I don't think the Nationals went far enough. If you're going to go edgy, go all the way edgy. Don't settle for some safe-for-ESPN Radio-type controversy - you've got to do the damn thing.
Fortunately, it's not too late. The Nationals' marketing strategy can be completed simply by firing Clint and the Nat Pack and replacing them with these guys (WARNING: this is not safe for work and regrettable in a number of other ways):
Now that's edgy. They have our new advertising slogan: We Ain't Got Bats We Got Straps. Which is to say, maybe we suck as baseball, but we will shoot you. Or at least text you a picture of a gun.
