Deconstructing Fisher

Marc Fisher wrote an excellent (though somewhat idealistic) article this morning about the Nats and the surrounding neighborhood in Southeast as we enter the fifth year of the franchise and the second year of the new ballpark (well, not so new anymore). The temptation to add my commentary to the mix was all too great to resist.

The idea was that by building the stadium, the city would unleash imaginations and wallets. Bars and restaurants would spring up, and tax dollars would flow. A grand circle of investment would be completed.

This was the idea that we were all sold on for bringing a team to Washington, and it was a good idea! The only problem was—and this wasn't the fault of the city, MLB, or anyone else—this idea sprung up right in the thick of the real estate boom, when people couldn't even conceive of the bubble bursting. I still think the idea is a good one, and hope that one day the idea comes to fruition. But it won't be overnight, nor will it be this year or next.

No one builds much of anything these days. We've lost the trust we had in the idea that building begets building, that that domino effect creates the energy that sustains us.

That was one of the greatest fallacies of the housing boom—that everything would go up, up, up! But then reality kicked in, and the economic collapse that I had predicted 3-4 years ago took place (no, I'm not an economist; all it took was common sense to see that we as a nation were spending ourselves into the ground and that one day it was going to royally come back and bite us in the ass hard).

But despite the optimism each new season brings, there is a growing unease, questions about whether fans will really support the team and whether the city's investment will provide the promised returns.

Winning might help! Our best season was our first, when we finished up 81-81! From that point onward, it was all downhill. This is something I lay firmly at the feet of the Lerners, who haven't really proven themselves worthy as owners. It's one thing to play hardball with the city council by refusing to pay rent on the stadium (not that I'm condoning that necessarily), but there's no excuse whatsoever for refusing to spend money to recruit promising talent for a team that badly needs it. It's not like the Lerners don't have the money! But like all other super-wealthy people, they want the biggest bang for the least amount of buck, even though the hard reality is that the Nats are getting what they're paying for—zippo. It doesn't help that Washington is a football town by nature, too, so growing a fan base for baseball is going to require winning seasons.

Some will say it's time to return to reality: The owners aren't spending the money it takes, the team's still a loser, the game's in decline, times are tight, let's stay home and watch TV.

Tight times alone might be enough to keep people away from the ballpark, though I'm sure the Nats aren't the only team in baseball being hit by the recession. As to that last point, though, there are still some who are bitter that Peter Angelos owns the majority of the Nats' TV revenues, and wonder what act of God must take place before that's set right. I mean, how is one baseball team owning another team's TV rights not the very definition of "conflict of interest"?

For my part, I still love the Nationals, and hope to make it to as many games as I can this year. Our losing record(s) won't diminish my love of my team. But the frustrations I feel are shared by countless others across the region, and I can only hope that one day they can be set right.

Oh, and as a final post-script, I loved how Marc called out Adrian Fenty!

When the city's soccer franchise asked for the same deal the Nationals got, Mayor Adrian Fenty gave D.C. United the back of his hand.

If memory serves, Fenty ardently opposed the stadium deal way back in the Linda Cropp era. And had he been mayor of DC in 2004, I'm sure he would have done the same to the Nats. (Though I do have to give Fenty marks for consistency.)