This World Series began like a treat when the Washington Nationals took a 2-0 lead over the Houston Astros … in Houston … in their best of 7 games. But then it seemed like a trick when the Astros came to Washington and won 3-consecutive games to take a 3-2 lead back to Houston.
Even diehard Nats fans had to think there was not even a snowball’s chance in Hell their team could return to Houston and repeat that 2-0 feat to win the series. Except that the Nats’ played their entire season overcoming such odds.
And so they did it again, turning that trick the Astros played on their fans into a historic treat.
With one more comeback win, at the end of a comeback season for the ages, the Nationals were World Series champions. A 6-2 victory over the Houston Astros in Game 7 on Wednesday night sealed it, delivering the first baseball title for the nation’s capital since Walter Johnson’s Senators won their only one in 1924.
Having existed for the better part of five months as a decided underdog — their chances of winning the World Series on May 24, when they were 19-31, were 1.5 percent — the Nationals had come to live for the daily fight for their lives.
(The Washington Post, October 31, 2019)
Of course, no less noteworthy is the way this series obliterated long-standing presumptions about home-field advantage. After all, neither team won a single game at home.
That said, I’d be remiss not to hail pitcher Stephen Strasburg for winning the series MVP. Because here is how I hailed the Nats – in “Washington Redskins Come Up Lame…Again,” January 7, 2013 – for having the foresight that saved his career and made this championship possible:
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No doubt you recall when [Washington Redskins quarterback RG3] suffered what looked like a career-ending knee injury on December 9 in a game against the Baltimore Ravens. I saw it happen live and thought then that he should have been placed on injured reserved immediately to repair and rehab that knee in preparation for next season.
In fact, I had in mind what our Nationals baseball team did to protect and preserve their franchise pitcher, Stephen Strasburg, when he suffered what looked like a career-ending elbow injury in August 2010: they pulled him from the rotation immediately; had him undergo corrective surgery; and then sat him out for an entire year to rehabilitate his arm.
By contrast, the Redskins Washington kept RG3 in that fateful game until he could barely stand on his own two feet; rested him for one week; and then put him back in the lineup — despite it being painfully clear to everyone that he was not even close to being 100%. …
I fear that, having been unable to take the Redskins Washington back to the Super Bowl this year, RG3 will end up doing no more for them than Vick did for the Eagles (or the Falcons): provide boundless excitement when he plays, but hardly playing because of chronic injuries.
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Sure enough, a fully rehabilitated Strasburg has now delivered the championship the Nats envisioned when they drafted him. Having done so, it should surprise no one if he exercises his option to sign with a spendthrift team like the New York Yankees to end his career making as much money as possible.
Sadly, a chronically injured RG3 is hardly playing. I bemoaned his professional demise in “Washington Turns on Franchise QB, RG3, November 24, 2014. He now seems fated to fade into retirement as a sidelined board holder. Perhaps in a karmic gesture of sympathy, the Baltimore Ravens signed him this year to a two-year contract as a third-string quarterback. This, after the Cleveland Browns released him at the end of a two-year, unproductive stint. But I digress …
I can think of no better way to put this Nats championship into perspective than to share the following tweet from the National Cathedral:
We don’t give thanks for winning a ball game; we give thanks for the @Nationals bringing joy and unity to a city in desperate need of both.
— National Cathedral (@WNCathedral) October 31, 2019
This championship is indeed a treat in so many ways.
Amen.
Related commentaries:
Nats vs Astros. Yankees…
Redskins…
Washington turns on RG3