(editor’s note: This blog is our THIRD baseball upload of the past week from various Pencil Storm contributors. Obviously nobody could WAIT for the Super Bowl to be over so they could indulge their Boys of Summer proclivities. Cabin fever RULES!)
Well, the NFL season has been put to bed and now it’s time for March Madness and then baseball. With that in mind, I wanted to reflect just a little bit on the 2019 MLB season. I was born in Washington, D.C. and raised in the suburb of Alexandria, Virginia. When I was about 6 or 7 years old my cousin Eric introduced me to baseball card collecting. I remember whenever my cousin was visiting from his home outside Philadelphia, we would spend time at my grandmother’s apartment, which was really close to a 7-11 store. She would buy us gobs of Topps baseball cards at ten cents a pack. We would spend hours trading our “doubles” and building our collections. I remember the first goal was for me to get all the Washington Senators, and Eric was collecting the Philadelphia Phillies. Most of these memories were 1970-71, which I know because I still have all those baseball cards---the 1970 cards have a gray border and the 71’s are black. The black ones look great with the red in Senators’ uniforms.
1970 Topps Frank Howard
1971 Topps Ted Williams (manager)
It was about that time that the Senators packed up and moved to Texas to become the Texas Rangers. I was heartbroken. My Dad (RIP) took me to RFK Stadium to see the Senators a number of times. My best friend John who lived down the street once caught a Frank Howard home run ball. I loved that team, even though they lost most of the time. With my team gone, I vowed not to root for the Rangers, and due to the fact that my favorite player in baseball was Carl Yastremski of the Boston Red Sox, I declared that the Red Sox would be my team from that point forward. The San Diego Padres threatened to relocate to D.C. only a season or two later, and I have a Topps baseball card that reflects that, but it never happened. If it had, I would have abandoned the Sox and rooted for my hometown team again.
an interesting card… $6.85 on ebay if you want one
I faithfully rooted for yet another losing team for the next 33 years until Boston finally broke through in 2004, winning the fall classic after winning the American League in a miracle comeback against the hated Yankees. I watched every playoff and World Series game in 2004 and it was worth the loss of sleep. I was elated over my Sox finally winning. I was 41 years old and it was the only time my team had ever won in baseball. My sister (RIP) went to school in Boston and got me to Fenway park once. That is a special memory, like my Dad and RFK Stadium. Since then the Sox have taken the title three more times, in 2007, 2013 and 2018. But those next three Red Sox wins were not as sweet for me. Why? Well because even though I still pull for Boston to win the American League pennant every year, in 2005 Washington, D.C. got baseball back. Naturally, I had to declare my true allegiance to my hometown Washington Nationals. They may have taken a couple of seasons to win me over, but they did.
Which brings me to 2019. After 14 years in town, and after some big playoff failures, the Washington Nationals brought a World Series title to D.C. for the first time since the 1924 Senators. Again, I stayed up late, watching my team pull off miracle after miracle to win the Series. When it was done, I had a feeling that exceeded even the 2004 Red Sox title.
I count myself lucky that without being a bandwagon jumper, I was able to root with all my heart and soul for two of the most improbable World Series champions—the 2004 Boston Red Sox and the 2019 Washington Nationals. I don’t expect to win another one in my lifetime, but that’s fine. I got this one, and it means a lot to me.
Now it’s time for pitchers and catchers to report!