Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Nurturing Optimism (even if only brifely)

Missed this one from a couple of days ago: an actual call to 'tism from Nationals Journal! Chico Harlan has brought plenty of snark to the program since taking over, but here he actually encourages Nats' fans to share their optimistic thoughts on the team, looking away from things like (now) seven-game non-winning streaks and to focus on what is good about the franchise and its future. Of course, he's probably just giving the fans what they want instead of completely changing his ways, but the effort is certainly appreciated. We certainly wouldn't rank him up there with some of the great optimism-haters of all time, though on occasion his little editorial jabs irk us somewhat.

The fans seemed to respond in kind. The comments section filled up with flowery optimism, proving again that not every Nats fan (or alleged fan) is a downer. This comment from "masnstinks" nicely captured the spirit:

A. We have a baseball team in DC!
B. We have a new stadium in DC!
C. St. Claire and his pitching staff
D.Ryan Zimmerman
E. our minor leaguers
F. Jesus Flores
G.Just realizing that I could complete the alphabet if I wanted to -priceless!

Reference to tired credit card commercials aside, it just shows that once you start thinking about all that is good with the Nats, instead of dwelling on the easier-to-think-up (and nicely hammered home by every hack analyst out there) negatives, it's hard to stop.

Also encouraging: judging by Monday's attendance of 34,039, fans are decidedly NOT staying away in mass numbers despite the 38-68 record of a team still trying to recapture the run-scoring magic so recently discovered in Atlanta. Sure, maybe an unwanted Philly fan here or there, but there were some solid numbers for the series against not-in-proximity Houston a couple week ago too. In short, we see again that there is 'tism out there amongst the people, even if it's only rarely and briefly encouraged by our local correspondents.

1 comment:

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