Give Washington what it deserves

Washington, D.C. may finally get what it deserves. This reward will not be for enduring… Washington, D.C. may finally get what it deserves. This reward will not be for enduring politicians and their hangers-on, having late-night talk show hosts make cracks about former mayor Marrion Barry or even some great karmic retribution for having potholes that destroy any car’s suspension system. If all goes as planned, D.C. will have a baseball team.

Hometown baseball would mean that Washingtonians – such as myself – would no longer have to glean Oriole pride from Baltimore.

The Orioles are the only home team I’ve ever known. Too young to have seen the Senators – Washington’s former team – leave for the more glamorous locales of Minneapolis and Houston, I wore my black and orange happily.

I recall sitting in Camden Yards, screaming my lungs out as Cal Ripken hit the second grand slam of his career, spilling soda and popcorn and hugging people who, 10 minutes ago, had been strangers. That is the stuff of which baseball is made.

Getting my kicks by association will no longer do. Baltimore is a fantastic city and the Ripken-era O’s proved cheer-worthy. Still, I yearn for a team of my own.

But Washington cannot be treated like a typical city. Everything about it defies the norm. It does not belong to a state. It is a district; the U.S. Constitution dictates its size and scope. As a non-state entity whose residents are still subject to federal income taxes, circumstance places Washington into a separate category. It has fewer rights and more restrictions than any other American state, commonwealth or protectorate.

How does this affect the arrival of a baseball team? According to a Sept. 29 article in The Washington Post, Major League Baseball officials said, “the Washington area is the nation’s leading location for a relocated team.”

This statement would inspire the happy-dance of baseball-getting goodness if it did not continue saying that these officials “privately expressed doubts about the ability of the city…to put together a deal … [because of] its legacy of failed baseball franchises and its history of high crimes and governmental dysfunction.”

I cannot speak on behalf of the failed Washington Senators, but I can illuminate the latter two subjects. Firstly, violent crime decreased steadily in Washington during the past decade.

Secondly, no city is perfect. Does Washington have a history of misfeasance, malfeasance and nonfeasance? Yes. Boston, Philadelphia and New York have those as well. Cities magnify both the good and mal in human nature. We are not a city of angels nor of thieves.

Baseball can move Washington away from its bad press – the murders, the scandals and the cloud of noxious incompetence that covers the city. Having a baseball team would say that Washington, at least for a little while, could shrug off its poor reputation and silence its naysayers to become as respected and revered as, for instance, Oakland, Calif.

Congress compounds the issues. It must approve every penny of every dollar in the city budget. This process makes root canals look like a day in Happy-fun-ville.

These factors converge to complicate the baseball question. Can city officials be trusted with this responsibility, if they cannot make the ambulances run or give schools textbooks? Will fans throw down enough money to make baseball economically viable? Will Congress approve city funding being used to promote this new endeavor? Will Cal Ripken un-retire and aid Michael Jordan in starting a D.C.-based geriatric league?

These questions only breed other uncertainties. But this I know is true, whether D.C. gets the carrot or the stick – or the bat in this instance – I’ll keep screaming, spilling soda and hugging strangers-turned-friends so long as there’s baseball being played.

Sydney Bergman enjoys baseball and Brady Anderson’s playing thereof. She can be reached at sbergman@pittnews.com.