Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Hey, How 'Bout Those Cherry Trees?

Didja see them? They're Byooo-T-Full! And the PlayStation? Did you know we have one? You can build your own Screech even! C'mon up to the Red Porch! What's that? No, don't look over there towards the green grass! Come over here! Did you see Ben's chili bowl! No, don't look towards the mound! I implore you! See! We've got pretzels! They're shaped like our logo! A buck goes towards a good cause! No! STOP IT! Don't look over there! I warned you!

{Ray King fields ground ball}

Please! We have 1,400 concession sales points! We have cup holders! Cup holders! Look over here! Don't look that way!

{Ryan Zimmerman bats}

Noooo! Did you see the Capitol views???

{Ryan Zimmerman fields groundball}

Cherry trees? Try the cherry... awww fark it.

{Colome enters game}

posted by Chris Needham at 11:24 PM

18 Comments:

  • Here's Boz in Thursday's Post:


    "The Nats have nothing for which to despise themselves. Their park is lovely. But so are 20 others. Crowds are getting big with 32,780 last night as attendance at Nats Park is up almost 50 percent since Opening Day over the comparable games last season. But the whole sport is booming. Starting a season 6-16 isn't a capital offense, even in Washington."


    Starting 6-and-16 isn't embarrasing, Boz. But finishing 40-and-122 is.

    I love watching these guys. They're the '62 Mets without Frank Thomas and Richie Ashburn, who would be superstars on this club. Even Zimm (2-for-27 with runners in scoring position and I don't know how many throwing errors) is kinda overrated.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 4/23/2008 11:57 PM  

  • Oh, and one more thing from my previous post comments. Schneider should have gotten at least a nice ovation the first time he came to the plate, if nothing else but for the contributions he made to the team the past 3 seasons.

    Here. nothing. Absolutely nothing. I was pretty surprised.

    /off soapbox

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 4/23/2008 11:58 PM  

  • You were right... it was D-E-A-D in there. But with the way the team's playing, it's the right reaction.

    I wasn't too surprised by the Schneider reaction, coming after the Church one. I really expected Church to get booed, but the best you could say was that it was casual indifference! Maybe that hurts a bit more?

    By Blogger Chris Needham, at 4/24/2008 12:01 AM  

  • Nats fans, in general, need some practice in etiquette. Forget Schneider and Church. The first time Soriano returned, there was nearly a full house at RFK and virtually no reaction at all. This was following a historic 40-40-40 season, arguably the best individual performance by a Washington major leaguer in more than 50 years. As Steve Buschemi says in Fargo: "Total silence."
    Let's face it, the average fan arrives in the second inning, leaves in the sixth and is probably counting the days until Redskins training camp opens.
    Of course, given baseball's 33-year hiatus here, that's to be expected. Sad, but expected.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 4/24/2008 12:30 AM  

  • Schneider AND Church should have gotten ovations. They did nothing wrong, and I think that they would have loved playing in this park every day. They didn't ask to be traded. Just look at their fantastic numbers, it's such a shame that they now play for New York.

    I had a Mets fan ask me tonight, "So what do you fans think of Milledge?" and I replied, "He hasn't shown me anything yet besides speed, and we gave up a superior defensive catcher for one who can't throw anybody out." )Nor, for that matter, can Estrada and, apparently, Nieves.

    By Blogger Crash, at 4/24/2008 12:35 AM  

  • On the happy, happy front, it seems Ben's Chili Bowl has worked out their long lone kinks. I got to the stadium less than an hour before first pitch and sailed right through with my half-smoke.

    I guess my hang up is that i remember how awesome RFK was in 2005 (and even 2006) when it was electric, even when the score was 0-0. Sure RFK was a dump, but even when they lost, it was really fun going to the game. The fans used to always clap in unison when the opposing team had 2 strikes against them and such. The thing is is that most people in this area are over the Nationals.

    This new stadium came around at the right time though-can you imagine still being in RFK? Can we say average attendance of 15,000? The way things are going, next season instead of watching the game, they can spread out cots around the stadium and everyone who wants to shill out $35 for cot rental can take a good 3 hour nap!

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 4/24/2008 12:59 AM  

  • "Schneider AND Church should have gotten ovations. They did nothing wrong..."

    Here's what they did wrong:
    1. they were starters on terrible teams.
    2. Church never played hurt, not even a hang nail.
    3. Church said all Jews are going to hell.
    4. Church trashed us as soon as he got out of town. I don't have the quote handy, but something about the team never gave him a chance, blah, blah.
    5. Church couldn't hit a lefty little league pitcher (except the Nats' lefties, apparently)
    6. prolonged, consistent, relentless, enervating, soul-crushingly subpar performance on the field.

    Being a "good fan" doesn't mean blindly cheering terrible performance. Good fans boo. Smart fans don't show up when the product is subpar.

    You wanna know what happens when the team stinks for years and years and attendance doesn't decline? We call that the Chicago Cubs. Unfortunately for the Nats, they aren't owned by the same company that owns all the media covering them, the stadium isn't in the trendiest neighborhood in town, and the Nats Park looks a lot more like O'Hare than Wrigley.

    By Blogger Steven, at 4/24/2008 8:31 AM  

  • Steven

    I'm not a huge Church fanboy but, Schneider worked his arse of for this team. He coddled one of the worst staffs in baseball to a semi-respectable season last year. He was great defensively and deserved a standing ovation.

    Like him or not he always gave a hundred percent and deserved an ovation. Affection for a player isn't just about numbers, it is about how well someone served the franchise. Which he did well.

    Also, clapping your old players is just the decent thing to do. Except when Lo Duca leaves. He just sucks.

    By Blogger Unknown, at 4/24/2008 9:45 AM  

  • I don't hate Schneider either. I'll be at the game tonight, and I won't boo him. I'll even give him a polite clap-clap-clap. But he was a .235-.326-.336 hitter on a bad team. He doesn't get a loving ovation for working hard.

    Yes, it's sad that the longest tenured Nat hardly gets noticed on his return, but the reason it's sad is because the longest tenured Nat was a middle-of-the-road role player, at best.

    Also, as a side bar comment, I swear if you substituted the words "mediocre white guy" every time you heard an MLB announcer refer to a player as a "fan favorite" there'd be a 90% correlation. Just sayin'.

    By Blogger Steven, at 4/24/2008 10:34 AM  

  • Spare us the condescending lectures on fan "etiquette" please. I clapped for Church and Schneider when their names were announced for the lineups and at their first ABs. After that, they are just another member of "the enemy". I tend to do that for former Nats on their first visit to DC. But let's not make either of these guys into future HOF's. They were decent players at times, but their history in this town only goes back 3 years. It's not like they are Brett Favre in Green Bay.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 4/24/2008 10:38 AM  

  • Steven:

    Please stop repeating that falsehood.

    Church. Did. NOT. Say. All Jews were going to Hell.

    He ASKED if the pastor meant that, and when the clergyman answered in the affirmative, replied in essence, "That's terrible."

    He hasn't expressed anything that should lead you to assume that he hates Jews. Stop implying that he does.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 4/24/2008 10:40 AM  

  • I cheered for Schneider and Church during their first at bats .. and I kept saying 4-3 every time Schneider hit because that's what he usually did when he was a Nat .. I always cheer the guy and then say "welcome back and now strike out" .. and if you left last night at the end of the 5th you would have seen a decent game .. unlike the few of us who sat through the last painful out at 10:17

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 4/24/2008 10:48 AM  

  • He said:

    "I said, like, Jewish people, they don't believe in Jesus. Does that mean they're doomed? Jon (the chaplain) nodded, like, that's what it meant. My ex-girlfriend! I was like, man, if they only knew. Other religions don't know any better. It's up to us to spread the word," Church said.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/20/AR2005092002093.html

    I say:

    "Booooooooooooo!!!!!!!"

    You draw your own conclusions.

    By Blogger Steven, at 4/24/2008 10:55 AM  

  • It just so happens that I root for 2 teams, the Nats and the community-owned, 12-time world champion Green Bay Packers.

    Brian Schneider, the longest tenured Nat, vs. Brett Favre, Mr. Green Bay. Will they ever be mentioned in the same breath again? Wow. What a difference.

    By Blogger Steven, at 4/24/2008 11:05 AM  

  • Better boo us too!

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 4/24/2008 11:42 AM  

  • As I suspected, most of the Nats batters aren't hitting their weight. See matrix below. Until I checked the roster, I didn't realize how many lard-butts were on the team.

    Player, weight, average
    Ronnie Belliard, 215, .214
    Aaron Boone, 205, .263
    Johnny Estrada, 255, .208
    Cristian Guzman, 215, .312
    Willie Harris, 185, .179
    Nick Johnson, 235, .209
    Austin Kearns, 240, .205
    Felipe Lopez, 205, .255
    Rob Mackowiak, 190, .077
    Lastings Milledge, 205, .271
    Wil Nieves, 185, .267
    Wily Mo Pena, 270, .147
    Ryan Zimmerman, 230, .215

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 4/24/2008 12:36 PM  

  • Steven-
    I don't have any issue with your criticism of Church's play, but his religious comments are perfectly within the boundaries of free speech/religion. His comments did not seem to be directed in a negative or purposely inflammatory way at anybody; it was just a statement of a particular belief.
    Id he a dumbass for saying this to a reporter? Probably.
    But he has just as much right to openly express his religion as you do to call him a shitty ballplayer.

    By Blogger Rob B, at 4/24/2008 1:56 PM  

  • Not to belabor the whole Church thing, but I always found it bizarre that anyone thought this notion (Jews and other non-Christians are going to hell) was controversial.

    I'm now an avowed atheist, but was raised Lutheran, and for 17 years was told, "you can't go to heaven, and will in fact go to hell, unless you believe that Jesus is your savior." And, from having attended other churches (not even fundy ones) they're ALL SAYING THE SAME THING. So, if you find this sentiment at all shocking, you apparently have no clue that this is what most mainstream Christian churches in this country are teaching. It's not anti-Jewish, it's anti-anyone-doesn't-agree-on-this-point. Church just happened to bring it up in the context of his Jewish ex-gf.

    By Blogger Unknown, at 4/24/2008 2:15 PM  

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