1. I think that the Nationals Park Ring should have the same baseball players that RFK had. If a player had to be elected to the Hall of Fame, that cuts out most of the important, and long-serving, baseball players who ringed RFK.
2. I'm undecided about retiring numbers...that was more of a Yankees thing than a Washington thing. Honor the Expos decisions? That's hard to justify when the Nats should be trying to increase their Washington fan-base. Andre Dawson, Gary Carter, and Rusty Staub were all fine players, but their history belongs to Montreal. Of course, having had my team stolen twice, it is painful to think of dis-honoring former Expos, but it has to be.
3. The old Nats never a retired number, in part because their best players switched numbers around. Players did not have numbers during most of Walter Johnson's career, and later seemed fairly casual about numbers. Except lordly Yankees. Take a look at Cecil Travis in Baseball Reference. He was numbers 26 and 31 as a rookie in '33, then 20 when he became a regular in '34, then 5 until he went to war, then 23 and 7 when he came back.
4. So, I say, don't retire numbers, but honor Travis and Joe Judge, Eddie Yost, Mickey Vernon and Roy Sievers.
