Thanks to the addition of the Nationals last spring, Washington DC is now a four-sport town. Or five, if you want to count soccer. Or six, if you want to count the WNBA, which I won’t. In fact, most of you probably don’t consider hockey to be a real sport anymore, but what do you know? In addition to DC’s pro teams, we have a number of college teams which are also pretty good. For those of you new to town, or those of you who couldn’t care less about DC sports, consider this your primer/refresher on the exciting athletic competition you will probably be ignoring for the next year.
Football
The Washington Redskins went 0-4 in the preseason, but don’t worry, you can still hear all about their glorious success on the NEW Triple X ESPN Radio: 94.3 FM to the West, 92.7 FM to the East, and 730 AM all over DC. Oh yeah! But wait, why do we need three stations to cover such a small geographical area? Well, these stations purchased by Fearless Leader Snyder have such weak signals that you’ll need to flip from one to the other as you drive through DC. Hope you have a lot of presets (also don’t try listening to the AM station late at night because it won’t be operating past 5 PM). With the Redskins firmly in control of the local media, you can expect another 16-0 regular season on the way to the team’s 346th straight Super Bowl title. Don’t listen to what those crazies at the Washington Post are saying.
Over in College Park, the Terps thoroughly trounced Middle Tennessee St. after squeaking by William & Mary in their opener (I’m writing this on Friday, so if Maryland only won by 28 points or less or somehow lost, I would be mocking them much more). The team continues to gear up for what will be the most pivotal game of the season against Florida International in two weeks. Hopefully Coach Friedgen won’t make the mistake of looking ahead to this game during the team’s tune-up against West Virginia. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the Hoyas’ squad—they stink. Also, I want to give a shout-out to the GW football team, which doesn’t even exist anymore: if you guys still played, you could probably beat Georgetown.
Baseball
The big baseball news of the summer in DC was the newly-opened Terrace Food Court at RFK. Oh, and the Nationals got new owners and three of the starting pitchers have an ERA over 5. And they’re also in last place. Don’t want to overlook that. The new food court features five new vendors, offering such delicious fare as crab cakes, chicken wings, catfish, and beef brisket BBQ sandwiches. This food is so delicious that you’ll completely forget that that you paid $15 for it and that the Nationals are awful. Well, maybe only for three minutes. But there is hope—the new Nationals stadium is set to be completed by spring 2008, and we all know that construction projects are always completed on time. When this majestic new park is open, you will be able to experience the thrill of transferring to the Green Line with thousands of other people at the same time! My only hope is that they continue the policy currently in use at RFK of using ushers to only guard the PNC Diamond Club seats.
Basketball
The Wizards, who really need an established center, drafted some Ukranian guy who reminds ESPN.com of Keith Van Horn. Apparently GM Ernie Grunfeld is drafting a bunch of centers with tremendous upside and should even one of the upside-filled youngsters develop into someone looking like an actual basketball player, well, you can forget about it. We all know how well the last big man the Wizards drafted turned out, so I think this is a good strategy. It’s too bad that guy from Senegal who only learned how to play basketball two years ago was already off the board before the Wizards’ pick; he has unbelievable upside. I think the Wizards are really being stupid here in not considering me as a potential draft pick as I have the most upside out of any player in the country. I have zero years of organized basketball experience, and the last time I actually played, I beat these two guys at the gym in a game to 11.
Readers of this column last year may have noticed that I failed to write even one sentence about the GW basketball team, which went undefeated in the A-10 regular season before losing in the conference tournament. The Colonials were shafted in the NCAA Tournament, seeded 8th in the Atlanta regional and having to face Duke in the second round. Having now surpassed last year’s total commentary on the basketball team in the past two sentences, you can expect much more coverage of our squad in this space in the coming months.
Hockey
Alexander Ovechkin is amazing. It is worth the $5 to sit up in the worst seats at the Verizon Center to watch him play (along with the rest of the Capitals; I’m pretty sure 90% of Ovechkin’s goals last year were unassisted). Sadly, his talent alone is not enough to carry the team to the playoffs, but now that captain and fan favorite Jeff Halpern has been cast aside, only good things can be in the cards for the hockey capital of the Mid-Atlantic.
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