Future hardships can't overshadow birth of DC Nationals

{image1} The Washington Nationals were born on Monday after 34 years of false hope, franchise relocation miscarriages and lots of painful labor.

Excuse me then, while I pass out some cigars and bore you with the baby pictures. This is a big moment for me.

Not that it should be hard for you Brewers fans to relate. You had a beloved baseball son (the Braves) run away from home once, too. But you got another team back, and it didn't take this long. In between, our eager and ready baseball capital probably helped build a dozen stadiums with just an implied threat to other cities.

Now, I share something with Milwaukee baseball fans. And that's bad baseball for as far as the eye can see.

Oh sure, I can dream about when our new stadium is built -- but that's at least three years away. And I can wait for when the new owners -- deep pocketed, please -- are selected. I can fantasize about Yankees-esque payrolls and winters in which we stir the hot-stove pot, signing stud arms and big bats in their prime.

But let's get real. We ain't gonna be the Yankees anytime soon. If ever. Hell, we may not even be the Mets, who spend like drunken sailors on shore leave but get about as much return on investment.

We'll probably be a respectable little mid-market team with not much recent baseball tradition built on. One that struggles to make the most out of a middle-of-the-pack payroll, and a fan base that will take a full generation to harden into a genuine following.

Your team is a struggling small-market team, with plenty of baseball history, but a decade of recent embarrassment. Your fan base is there, but it is beaten down by incompetence, penny pinching and lies. Get good again, and the Brewers buzz will spring back to life, I do believe it.

It's that the gettin' good is going to be hard part. You don't need me to tell you that.

But hey, so what? We have teams, right? You have a hometown nine; I now have a hometown nine. They may not win much, but they'll provide some topics to kick around at the water cooler.

This pitcher sucks. The manager is a clueless rube. Why did we trade "Hot Prospect X" for "Retread Reliever Y?" Did you see what happened last night in the ninth? Where's that stupid box score? Damn West Coast game.

You don't know how fun this will be for me, because you have to have lived your whole life without it to know. Monday, my Nats were getting pounded by the Phils 7-1. But then, they rallied. Suddenly, it's 7-4, bases loaded, one out!

"Let's go Nats! Let's go Nats! Let's go Nats!"

Here comes good ol' Terrmel Sledge to the plate. (Note: I call him "Sledgie." Why? Because I can. And also because that's what baseball players do -- call each other stupid variations of their real names.) I know very little about "Sledgie" other than that he wears #18, has a funny name and once got busted for steroids before everyone was on a witch hunt for them.

It's 4-6-3 double play. F*&%$ing Terrmel Sledge!

What's wonderful is that I have only begun to gripe at my team's woes, shortcomings and obvious chemistry defects. There will be abominable losses, base running blunders and flirtatious months when it looks like we might be a contender.

I will see a pitcher walk in a run on no hits in the ninth inning to lose a game. I'll see some scrub hitter for another team go Reggie Jackson on us some night with three home runs. I will watch blown saves from bad middle relievers where every fan watching just knows it is about to happen.

There will be bad trades, worse trades and trades that make you want to handcuff yourself to the commissioner's desk until he agrees to rescind it they are so bad.

There will be locker room feuds and managerial scrapes with the media. Things will be blown out of proportion. Or covered up until a later date in which you say, "Wow, I never knew it was that crazy." There will be low-level criminality, some DUIs, perhaps even a fight at the spring training team photo. This all comes with the territory. There will be players on my team that I absolutely hate. I hope they don't stay long. If I am lucky, we might get a Hall of Famer or two, and I don't mean a HOFer on his last of six career teams.

If and when we get that Hall of Fame player and he becomes known for wearing our colors, we can claim him as being all our own. Then I can always sit my kids and grandkids on my lap and tell them, "Well, ol' so-and-so was never like that. He was a pro."

Guys like Yount and Molitor. Robin was pure Brewers to the bitter end. Molitor was 15 years with, six years without. Scoreboard -- Brewers. Nuts to his winning a ring with Toronto. He's a Brewer.

I want a few guys like that. It may never happen, but I've got nothing but time. Baseball is back in Washington. For those of us in the "lost generation" that were too young to even remember it the last time, it's all new.

It's all house money. All good. All ours. Tell me the road grays with the bold and proud word "Washington" across the front in monumental style type didn't look sharp? Blue caps on the road, cherry red at home. I've got one of both.

Didn't Seinfeld once say, "You root for the uniform"? Damn, I like our uniforms.

Play ball, boys. And print the box scores. We are a baseball town again.

We can figure out the rest later.