Last night I had the pleasure of going to a game lost by the Washington Nationals. And, of course, the reason was that in the middle of the 9^th inning, we found out that the Pittsburgh Pirates had beaten the second place Atlanta Braves which meant the Nationals had won the National League East.

I am one of those people born in Washington DC and lived in the area all my life. I still have fond memories of my father taking me to see the hapless Washington Senators at Griffith Stadium. For those who never went, Griffith Stadium was sort-of a mirror image of Fenway Park in Boston. Washington’s ‘Green Monster’ was in right field, not like Fenway’s left field one. The other difference was that Washington’s team was ALWAYS terrible and the crowd’s fairly small.