Also during this down time of baseball I have been watching RGIII, and if you haven’t yet you should. This kid has given me a new appreciation for football. There is nothing he doesn’t do well, and like his teammate Santana Moss said, put him on the field and he will do something amazing. He has thrown for twelve touchdowns and just three interceptions with a completion percentage of 67.1% which is in the top ten in the NFL and directly behind Aaron Rodgers of the Green Bay Packers, and his three interception are tied for the lowest of any QB with Tom Brady. RGIII is a rookie, but he is already compiling stats that rank among the best QBs in football.

That isn’t all RGIII can do though. He is tied with CJ Spiller, the running back for the Bills, for the most yards per rushing attempt with 6.6. He has rushed for six touchdowns, the most of any quarterback, and has rushed for 613 yards, also the most of any quarterback. RGIII is the best duel threat QB the NFL has seen since Steve Young, and that is where the problem comes in. Steve Young’s career was hampered by injuries and concussions. Only three times did Steve Young play 16 games in an NFL season and only six out of his 15 year career did he play at least 14.

Steve Young was a great Super Bowl winning Hall of Fame quarterback, but his willingness to leave the pocket and make plays happen with his feet shortened more than half his seasons and quite possibly his career. The history of rushing quarterbacks in the NFL is one of injuries. Michael Vick and Ben Roethlisberger are both currently injured with different types of injuries that both could have been prevented if they had been more pure pocket passers, but that isn’t who they are. Football is a sport where players will be hit. Even the most pure pocket passer of this generation, Peyton Manning, had to miss the entire 2011 season due to a neck injuries. Football players get hit, and they get hit hard. A quarterback can get hurt just as easily or maybe even more easily on a blindside sack as they can scrambling down the field.

I bring all of this up because there is a movement afoot on one of the DC area sports talk shows to stop RGIII from running. They talk about his running and the team designing runs for him as if it is unique to the coach the Redskins have. Here is a tip for any aspiring coaches out there: coach to the talent you have. Any decent coach would design running plays for RGIII. The idea isn’t to get him hurt. It is simply to use a very dangerous weapon they have at their disposal. Let me repeat this stat for you, RGIII is tied with CJ Spiller for the most rushing yards an attempt with 6.6. RGIII is fast and knows how to run. He also knows that getting hit hurts and that sliding and getting out of bounds is a good thing, but he has a competitive streak and will try and get the first down or score when he is close. RGIII has taken some brutal hits this season, but there is no way he should stop running.

Perhaps my idea of no longer listening to sports talk radio was a good one, but I really thought after a big Redskins win and a 14 for 15 200 yard and 4 touchdown performance by the Redskins and RGIII there would be more positive talk about the team. They play in a weak division and have four games left against weak division foes. If things break right for the Redskins they could finish the season at 9-7 and maybe sneak into the playoffs. A lot has to go right and it is as close to improbable without being impossible that one can get, but it is a lot more fun to listen to than people making up facts about the new dynamic superstar in town because they are of the opinion that there is some magic cure to scrambling quarterbacks getting hurt.

Many people probably want me to know that there is a cure and that is making him a pure pocket passer. While he would still be good that way he wouldn’t be dynamic, he wouldn’t be a superstar, and he wouldn’t be as fun to watch. DC sports fans need to learn to enjoy the few good things we do have. The career of RGIII could be shortened by his running, but it is going to be a better career if he does run than if he doesn’t. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy watching him for the next ten years. The Redskins have a top flight quarterback. As long as they don’t mess it up by not letting RGIII be RGIII this is going to be a fun football team to watch very shortly.

The Twins started shooting up the standings and ended up in a position where they needed to win the next two against the Royals while the Tigers lost in order to make it to the post-season. All of these things happened and I was there to witness it. The Metrodome that day was an insane environment, and the game was a back and forth affair seeing both teams blow saves and former National John Rauch ended up with a Blown Save, Win. It was an amazing afternoon of baseball, and it wasn’t until I was sitting in a car driving to game five that I realized that I watched the 2012 Nationals play many afternoons and evenings of exciting baseball.

Then it struck me. That 2009 game between the Twins and Royals was no longer the best game I had ever seen, nor the most insane environment I had been a part of. The credit now went to game four of the NLDS between the Nationals and Cardinals. Ross Detwiler pitched six innings of one run ball to save the Nationals season and Jayson Werth ended the night with a 13 pitch at bat walk-off homer. I don’t think I will ever forget where I was at that moment. I was standing behind section 139 and as the ball sailed over the fence a crowd that was already standing appeared to grow a couple feet taller.

The happiness aftermath of the game was something I had never seen. The first and most apparent reaction was that no one left the stadium immediately. People found their friends and just kind of hung around inside Nats Park. Once they made it outside they walked down the street chanting, “Lets go Nats,” while car horns blared in rhythm. It was the happiest I have seen DC sports fans in my life, and the next evening when the Nationals jumped out to an early 6-0 lead over the Cardinals the shear joy of it all sent everyone into a state of delirium.

But like any great rise it was followed by a great fall. By now I am tired of writing about game five and I am sure you are tired of reading about it, but let’s not allow game five to ruin what game four was. It was an important realization I had on the way to game five. It was important because until that moment I hadn’t realized that I had been watching meaningful baseball in my hometown for the entire season. I still thought of that game in Minnesota as the best I had ever been to, but it no longer was. That honor now belongs to game four of the NLDS, and the time of meaningful baseball in DC looks like it has only just begun. Let’s just hope our next state of delirium last longer than the next six innings and doesn’t end in a splat.

During that summer I got caught up in this movement, but not so much for Virginia Beach to end up with the team. I wanted the team to end up in my hometown of Washington DC, and when the announcement became final and logos were introduced I happened to be home on Thanksgiving break. The first thing I did when I got home that Tuesday evening was to rush to the local Modell’s and buy a curly W cap. I still have that cap, shrunken and so full of dried sweat it can’t be worn.

I didn’t know I was waiting for the Nationals to arrive, but here they were and there I was as a fan. The 2005 season is one to remember, or at least the first half was. The team was mostly a collection of older players and castoffs no one else wanted, but yet they went out and won, and ended up in first place in the NL East at the All-Star Break. After that the season wasn’t so good, and from then until around September of 2011 it was hard to be a Nationals fan.

It is certain that most people will remember the back to back 100 loss seasons and how terrible they were, but 2007 and 2010 weren’t much better either. Something happened in 2011 though. Jim Riggleman walked away and a team that already had flashes of talent ended up with the right man to lead them. Davey Johnson stepped in and led the Nationals to a hot finish in September and to a 98 win season in 2012. It has been the best season I have ever witnessed as a baseball fan.

As a non-baseball fan everything has gone wrong, and I can safely say that this has been the worst year of my life. The business I worked for shutdown and I took a risk with no capital and only credit to become a Realtor. That was a big mistake and put me in a bigger hole than I was already in. Around May I helped my wife out on one of her pet sitting visits and saw that a person could make decent money doing that. The only problem is it is hard to make an eight hour day of what most clients consider a two hour window. So here I am working part time and looking high and low for a job in an over saturated environment.

It may sound and it is stupid, but the exploits of the Washington Nationals kept me going. I rode the highs and lows of this season’s team like I had no other and the highs were so much higher than they had been before. Now we have arrived at another moment that I wasn’t certain I had been waiting my entire life for, but that may very well be the case, and what happens. MLB shits on history. That is what has happened. The suits at MLB looked at their charts and graphs and figured that a night game in New York and a day game in Washington would give them the highest rankings.

I have news for them though. The New York Yankees are in the playoffs every single season. There is nothing historic about them playing a playoff game while history is being made in DC. This is the first playoff game in the nation’s capital since 1933, and that gets treated like Judge fucking Judy. Stashed away on a mid-day time-slot, and let’s not even think about the people that bought tickets. The people like me working a part time job because there aren’t any full time jobs to be found. I spent a good amount of money on the ticket I have to Wednesday’s game. The first playoff game in DC since 1933. What is arguably the most historic playoff game taking place Wednesday and it is treated like Jerry Springer.

Not to come off as sounding like I have earned something more than other fans, but I sat through the 2008 and 2009 seasons. I endured the 2005 collapse and the Soriano trade or non-trade escapade. I sat through the Jim Bowden and Stan Kasten era. I waited my entire life to have baseball in my hometown, and then I waited through seven awful seasons to have playoff baseball in my hometown only to watch it treated like your average day time soap. Sorry but the only words I have left are FUCK YOU MLB.

The umpires also made the Nationals players all return to the base they originally occupied and round the bases after Morse took a fake swing. It was a night destined to be weird. It would continue later in the game after the Nats allowed the Cardinals to hang around and chip away at their four run lead. The Cardinals would catch the Nats in the ninth inning when Storen allowed a sac fly to score the tying run, and this is where the greatness of this game is culminated.

Storen is a good enough pitcher that he rarely suffers complete meltdowns. He blew five saves in 2011 as the closer and all five times the Nationals came back and won the game. When Storen blows a save he rarely blows the game. It is one of the reasons that in 2011 among his five blown saves two of them were blown save, wins. Storen has a consistency that other relievers the Nats have used in the ninth lack. When Clippard is on he is untouchable, but when he is off it is not a pretty sight. The same can be said for Henry Rodriguez, but Storen is a different bread. It is rare to witness a complete meltdown on the mound by Drew Storen.

So after allowing the tying run to score Storen struck out the next batter and would set up the events of the top of the tenth inning. With a runner on second, two outs, and Danny Espinosa at the plate Cardinals manager, Mike Matheny, decided to intentionally walk Espinosa to get to Kurt Suzuki. This move is a bit puzzling as Espinosa is the better hitter, but not by a wide enough margin to even consider intentionally walking him to pitcher to Kurt Suzuki, but yet Matheny felt this move gave him an advantage.

Suzuki promptly made the move look as bad as it was as he rifled a double off the left field wall scoring both base runners. Craig Stammen would then come in to close out the game, lower the Nationals magic number to one, and give Drew Storen and the Nationals their first blown save, win of the 2012 season. There is no better way for a team to earn a blown save, win than with their rightful closer on the mound, against a team he has had more than a few interesting games against, and in a game in which a pretend grand slam was hit.

There is nothing wrong with how either city is and it is great that they are different. There are things I like about both. In all honesty I prefer the surrounding countryside of Baltimore to the vast suburban sprawl of DC. In order to get to a small town from Baltimore all one has to do is drive 15 minutes outside the city limits. To get to a small town from DC takes at the very least 45 minutes depending on which direction one is driving.

Baltimore and Washington can’t be much different from each other, and yet they are constantly lumped together as if some sort of Baltimore/Washington area exists. Perhaps this area exists in a place like Laurel, Md, but what connection do people from Fairfax, Va have to those in Manchester, Md? Those are two areas that can’t be much different. Manchester, Md has a town restaurant that only excepts cash and where a person can get a filling breakfast for $2.95. There is one grocery story that is supplied from the butcher who gets their meat from the local farmers.

Just in the part of Fairfax were I am there are eight grocery stores all within five miles of each other and the only one that gets their meat from “local” farms charges about $10 extra for it, $2.95 breakfast is a grande coffee at Starbucks, and going out to eat can’t involve a town restaurant because there is no town and no small local restaurants.

There are benefits to both areas, but they breed different cultures. Last evening I ventured up to Orioles Park at Camden Yards and found myself in awe of something. The Orioles fans love their team. Now Nationals fans after a Nats win love their teams, but I couldn’t imagine them wearing a variety of t-shirts with their managers name made into a bad pun like “Buck Yeah,” “Buckle Up,” or “Buck the Past.” I am sure there are many a Nats fan that can’t wait for the, “Our Johnson is Better than Yours,” t-shirt, but they wouldn’t be nearly as widespread as all the Buck Showalter Orioles gear.

My feeling on the Nationals goes back to a statement I overheard at Nats Park and one I believe many Nationals fans share. When walking out of a game that the Nationals won I saw a Nats fan talking to a fan of the opposing team. I can’t remember specifically who the team was the Nationals beat but only they had been good in recent memory. The Nationals fan was almost apologizing the the visiting fan and then tried to explain the Nationals with these words, “The Nationals are kind of bad, but we think they are good.” The team with the best record is kind of bad and we only think they are good. A team with one of if not the best run differential in baseball is kind of bad. Even now with a magic number of four with eight games left to play many Nats fans are waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I admire this about Baltimore. They are not waiting for another shoe. I don’t know if the 16 straight losing seasons caused them to lose their shoes somewhere along the way and therefore there is no other shoe to drop. What I can say though is that Orioles Park at Camden Yards is a sickeningly happy place after an Orioles victory. It has been this way every since the Orioles ended up with a winning record. Perhaps all the articles talking about the Orioles being lucky or going against trends in baseball drew the fan base closer. I don’t know the reason, but I do know it is different.

Baltimore and Washington couldn’t be more different as places and in the personalities of their citizens, and that is reflected in how the sports teams are viewed. It is only through comparison that we can start to understand, and in comparing the Baltimore and Washington areas it can be observed that they are both unique areas that happen to be close together.

Mike Trout is a centerfielder. Mike Trout has a .957 OPS. Mike Trout also has made a ton of amazing defensive plays. Miguel Cabrera is a “third baseman.” Miguel Cabrera has a .993 OPS. Miguel Cabrera let’s you breath if he makes a play on defense. A centerfielder putting up similar offensive numbers to a corner position and playing some of the best defense ever seen should run away with the MVP award. Baseball fans have to remove the idea from their heads that valuable means something other than best. Mike Trout is the best player in the AL. Mike Trout might be the best player baseball has seen in a decade. Mike Trout is your AL MVP and it isn’t even close.

The Braves would have to play out of their minds while the Nats completely fell apart in order for the Braves to win the East. As of right now there is about a 3% chance that it happens, but it isn’t impossible. The possibility might exist on the outer realms of reality, but this is Washington DC where only heartbreak is none among sports fans.

At times like this it is hard to keep the emotions in check. To just look at the raw facts and the details that the Nats should and more than likely will win the NL East. This is a time when writing becomes an exercise in catharsis. I have said before that I want this to be over. I want to know how this all ends. Baseball is a long season full of ups and downs and after enough ups and downs it can start to wear thin. We are reaching the last gasp of the season and baseball is often predictable, but it sometimes isn’t.

Every team the Nationals play from this point out are fighting for the second Wild Card spot and none of them are going to give the Nats a break. None of these games should be even and although the Nats have entered most series in these later parts of the season with the best record in baseball it is still hard to look at these series and think of the Nationals as the favorite. It is much easier to still look at them as the slightly better than 100 loses 2010 variety.

I have come to realize that I will never be able to get use to these new Nationals. The Nationals that are good and it is rare when they lose a series and even more rare when they get swept. I want to see them win and I want to see how this all ends, but I would like to see it over with sooner than later. I would like to be able to wear a Nats NL East champs t-shirt while the season is still going on.