Washington Baseball

This post is about a wasted opportunity: the poor choice of name for the D.C. baseball team.

Seriously. I know I joked about this before but Nationals is a terrible choice for a name. There's a reason people called them the Senators long before that became the official name of the DC team. No one has any kind of attachment to that name; it sucks. The worst thing about it all is that there were two, count 'em 2, far better options for the name.

Personally, I favor the Grays. I had come to this conclusion all by my lonesome and even thought it an original idea. Then I discovered that the Mayor of DC had pushed for that name. It's a great idea to bring back one of the famous Negro League names and among those that easily come to mind (Monarchs, Barons, Giants, Grays) it is the best fit for DC. The Grays also played games in DC and drew crowds which were larger than those the "Nationals" drew. It is sad that we are missing the opportunity to honor an important team from an important part of baseball history.

Then there was the traditional name for the DC team: the Senators. I don't care if the actual name was the Nationals (a fact I'm sure few of us knew until recently) the DC team was the Senators. If you are going to bring back a historical team why walk away from the name which everyone knows it by just to embrace a name obscured in baseball trivia? It makes no sense and is just another one of the myriad bad decisions baseball keeps making year after year.

It may not be too late. Maybe when they find someone to buy the team the new owners will see the light. We can only hope.