World Series: Champions On The Potomac

The last time a Washington, D.C.-based baseball team won a World Series was in 1924, when Walter Johnson pitched the Senators to the title.  Almost a century later, after two different Senators teams left town (one to Minnesota in 1961, another to Texas in 1972), a 33-year gap of no baseball, and the arrival of the Montreal Expos to the nation's Capital in 2005, the Washington Nationals are the new champions of baseball.

The Nationals defeated the Astros 6-2 in Game 7 at Houston, in a series where the road team won every game--something that has never happened in pro sports championships.  Howie Kendrick and Anthony Rendon hit home runs in the seventh inning to take the lead and never looked back.  Max Scherzer and Stephen Strasburg were the pitching aces that brought the Nationals back from a 3-2 deficit in games.

This was an eventful series all right, and sometimes for the wrong reasons:

• The Astros fired their assistant general manager Brandon Taubman for being a little too exuberant in his praise of closer Roberto Osuna toward a group of female reporters following the team winning the American League Championship Series.  Osuna, you see, had been suspended by Major League Baseball for 75 games for violating its domestic abuse policy.

• President Donald Trump attended Game 5 at Nationals Park in Washington, only to find that the reception he got when his face was shown on the Jumbotron was anything but the kind he usually gets at his rallies.  In fact, he was booed unmercifully.  Under normal circumstances, a President should be greeted with respectful applause by friend and foe alike.  This President, however, hasn't done much to earn the respect of his constituents outside of his loyal base.  As for those who exercised their First Amendment right to make a sound associated at this time of year with ghosts, we're reminded of something Trump's predecessor Barack Obama once said:  Don't boo. Vote.

In the two decades since the 21st century began, the Chicago White Sox, Cubs and Boston Red Sox were baseball teams that have had long histories of being lovable losers before finally winning the Big One.  Now it's the city named for George Washington's turn.  First in war.  First in peace.  First in Major League Baseball.