1. Zimmerman walkoff homer against the Yankees, 2006: I'd had a ticket for Father's Day, 2005, but had a massive heart attack. Took my daughter's gift, a Harmon Killebrew 1959-'60 shirt, number 3, autographed by Harmon himself. Wife came along to keep an eye on me. Other than Opening Day, I'd never seen DC Stadium / RFK so full of baseball fans. In the 9th inning, the new kid at 3B, playing Killebrew's old position, did a Harmon and belted a two-run homer into the visitor's bullpen.
[All around, a strange game. I had been a Yankee and, sometimes, Met fan during the Nats' long road trip from 1972 through 2004. Daughter had grown up a Yankee fan in the 1990s, the great Joe Torre era. Now my hometown had a team again. In the 1990s, I would do a search for "Washington Senators" that would return the members of the US Senate from the State of Washington. Finally found a book, by David Gough, called "They've Stolen our Team: the 1960 Washington Senators". That led to the Washington Baseball Historical Society and "Nats News", showing that there were still people who remembered. Then I found some photos of the Expansion Senators posted by "Big Bruno". Then, around 2002 or 2003, I read an email list in which a woman known as here as "CalsGr8" was organizing people to demonstrated against the owner of our guests, the Baltimore Orioles, who was claiming that Washington DC, founding city of the American League, was property of the Bush League Baltimore Orioles. I had watched as other bush league towns, like Miami and Tampa and Denver and Phoenix got expansion teams, passing over Washington. That was the town that had gotten three Super Bowl wins playing at RFK Stadium, a stadium built for baseball and football. Then, Washington had a team.]
2. August, 2012, a day game in which Detwiler set down the Braves in the game where Dan Uglla leaped to demolish Chipper Jones. A weekend series when the almighty Braves were expected to squash the upstart New Nats. Ha! Daugyhter and I had tickets near the camera-well beside the Nats dugout. Watched Stephen Strasburg sign baseball after baseball for little kids. Strasburg's face was red, and he was sweating -- classic Washington baseball weather. He hadn't pitched...he could have been in the clubhouse, but he stood by the kids. A baseball hero.
3. Game 3, 2019 NL Championship Series. Strasburg mowed down the Cardinals. Howie K. hit double after double. We were in the second deck, RF, just behind some Cardinal fans and beside some Cardinal fans. Son, a Washington fan of course, lives outside St Louis, where he had endured years of Cardinal fans' "sympathy" for 2012. I thought about that as one set of Cardinal fans left about the sixth inning, and the others said, with lowered voices, "I hope we win one game, at least". We know that they didn't.
4. Game 5, 2019 World Series. What Washingtonian would have imagined, in 1953, when I watched the Old Nats on TV, Channel 5, Dumont Network, with the great Bob Wolf, that our team would win a pennant and play in the World Series? Max had neck spasms, so It looked grim, but it was the World Series in my hometown! Grandad saw Walter Johnson, Dad took me to Opening Day, 1954, when Clark Griffith himself (Hall of Fame) still ran the team, and Bucky Harris (Hall of Fame) had come back to manage the team. Griff and Bucky were the same pair that had led the team to the 1924 World Series championship. As daughter and I drove around the Beltway on our way to NYC, we talked over the next two games. Strasburg can win Game 6, we thought, but it will be tough back in Houston. And who will pitch Game 7? Now we know.
