OCTOBER 4, 2012

 

     The  Washington Nationals have clinched something, but baseball has gotten so quirky, I'm not sure what.  When I was a kid, there were eight teams in each league.  Every fall the two leaders, who we said had won the pennant in their leagues, as we used to say, played a best-of-seven World Series.  The winner was the lord of baseball creation.

      Now, there are three leaguelets in each league.  Some have five teams, some six.  Four teams in each league qualify for the playoffs--the three actual winners and the non-winner with the best record--the wild card team.  How they play off is something of a mystery to me.  One day I read that the Washington Nationals, who haven't ever won anything, had made the playoffs, another day that they'd won something else--good grooming, maybe.  I have no idea.

     Winning anything is good news here.  The Nats, a young expansion team, have never won.  The previous Washington team, the Senators, had a slogan they'd earned:  Washington, first in war, first in peace, last in the American League.

     So go, Nats.  Win all you can.  We'll worry about what to call it later on.