FanNation - The Republic of Sport

As the first ten percent of the 2009 season comes to a close the Washington Nationals are already hitting their stride in an attempt to maximize their spectacular ineptitude. Through their first 13 games of the 2009 season the Nats are 3-10 and on pace to finish with a 37-125 record. We expected the boys in the beltway to be bad, but come on already. However, their vomit-inducing on field play is not the only thing the Nationals can claim as their own right now. No, Washington is just as inept and ridiculous off the field and in the front office as they are at the old ball yard. Here???s a recap of some of their more recent and notable???shall we say???improprieties. Last Saturday outfielder Elijah Dukes, who has a history of negativity clinging to him like a static-filled sock fresh out of the dryer, was fined by the team, benched for that game and threatened with a demotion to Triple-A for showing up five minutes past the required reporting time for that night???s game. On the surface this wouldn???t strike anyone as out of the norm, until you learn that Dukes was running late because he was doing charity work for the Nationals at a local little league. That???s right boys and girls, helping kids will get you fined and threatened with a trip to Syracuse when you play for the team located in our Nation???s capital. What kind of organization fines and benches a player who does charity work for kids, in their name? I understand that rules are rules, but come on; how borderline ridiculous can you get when you punish a guy for taking the time to work with kids. Hang on, the stupidity doesn???t stop there. Have you heard about the new statues perched on the back side of the stadium? These extremely pricey statues of greats Josh Gibson, Walter Johnson and Frank Howard grace the walkway area beyond the left field seats. Panned far and wide by fans, bloggers and sports writers everywhere for their poor design, muddled look and historical inaccuracies, it???s hard to find anyone who believes the statues are not unattractive and poor representations of the three men they immortalize. Considering beauty is in the eye of the beholder I shall give their outward aesthetic a pass regardless of public opinion. What doesn???t get a pass is the fact that Frank Howard???s jersey number is inaccurately depicted as #9. The particular jersey Howard???s statue is sculpted as wearing is from 1969, and worn in 1969 only. Senator???s manager Ted Williams was wearing # 9 that year, not Howard. Howard was wearing #33. Then we move on to the bat in Howard???s hands. It???s an Ernie Banks model Louisville Slugger. The same sculptor who produced these ???works of art??? for the Nationals sculpted a Banks statue a few years back for the Cubs. Nobody bothered to tell him to use a Howard model bat as his reference source, so Howard???s statue is swinging Mr. Cubs stick for all eternity. Want more? Last Friday night sluggers Adam Dunn and Ryan Zimmerman took the field wearing their brand spankin??? new NATINALS jerseys. That???s right, the two marquee stars from this Major League baseball team (and I use that term loosely) took the field with jerseys missing the ???O??? in the name. Yes, missing the ???O???. Insert your own joke here. And I guess that???s the point. The Nationals are a joke. Their leadership is a joke. Their way of doing business is a joke and everywhere you turn they do one thing after another that just makes you sit back and say ???what the hell were they thinking???? It???s as if the entire group of them got together and came up with as many ways as possible to waste money and be counterproductive, common sense and intelligence be damned. Then it occurred to me. This sounds eerily similar to another group of people who call D.C. home, at least while certain ???sessions??? are going on. It doesn???t take a savant to figure it out; so-called leadership that constantly gets in its own way and takes any and every opportunity to make a bad situation worse whenever one arises. Sure enough, if you throw in a pork-laden bailout and some corporate tax evasion for the Natinals (err???Nationals) both groups would be so strikingly similar it would be painfully scary. Plainly and simply put the Nationals are the team Washington D.C. deserves; cracked and splintered mirror images of one another. No more, no less. On a positive note, the Nationals play their home games in the first major sports stadium in the U.S. to be certified ???green??? by LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), designating it as environmentally ???fan friendly???. Too bad the Nationals (as well as that other group of incompetent jokers) don???t spend more time on things that are truly ???fan friendly???, like applying intelligence and common sense to their day to day actions. Now comes word the parents of the little leaguers National???s OF Elijah Dukes was spending time with have decided to pay his fine for tardiness imposed by his employer. Perhaps these parents should be placed in charge of the Nationals from this point on, giving that organization a chance to do something they???ve never done before: making decent decisions and winning some baseball games.