by Andrew Lang
by Andrew Lang
by Andrew Lang
Welcome back, baseball!!!! The drag of the icy winter is subsiding (unless you live in Boone, North Carolina, where we are currently snowed in), the temperatures are slowly starting to rise, the yearly pilgrimage to Spring Training sites in Florida and Arizona have been made by the entire professional baseball world, and the game we all love is waking up from a long winter’s nap.
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As the sun rose brightly in West Palm Beach on an 82 degree day for the Opening Day of Spring Training, you could feel the warmth and the newness to everything months before that first pitch arrived on Saturday. Even the aged and faded Curly W logo on the site of the former “Circle of Trust” half field had a new logo and turf. Fresh coats of paint were aesthetic — it’s the brand new hard-wired technology that has everyone excited. All of that brings this team into the forefront of baseball information systems. There’s optimism — and not so dark and gloomy these days even if the evaluators think this team might only win 62-games.
As Daylen Lile said on MLB Network Radio, “It’s been awesome — it’s been really great. A lot of new guys especially from the front office, coaching staff, and players. We’re not in the dark ages anymore. It’s a bunch of new stuff. So I’m excited to see what comes with it. And I know we’re gonna do some great things.”
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Today will be that first chance to see the Washington Nationals against a legit starting pitcher as the Nats lineup will face the Marlins ace, Sandy Alcantara. The Nats will have Mitchell Parker starting at this game in Jupiter on the road.
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We made it! Later today we will post up some photos and videos from Spring Training Opening Day action. And for those who consider today as the official start of the preseason, here you go with two games on Opening Day of Spring Training in split-squad games. Jake Eder will start the home game versus the Astros, and Shinnosuke Ogasawara the game up the road against the Cardinals.
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Chuck Todd is a giant in the world of political news, but also was one of the founders of the Sports Business Journal back in 1994. He is a passionate baseball fan, and loves to talk about baseball. As a former moderator of Meet The Press on NBC and the host of MTP Daily on MSNBC, that is where Todd is most popularly known. And his work continues on his “The Chuck ToddCast” and other appearances to talk politics like on Sunday on the Noosphere.
We were fortunate that Chuck Todd came on the TalkNats Podcast in two parts to cover a variety of topics from the shuttering of the Washington Post sports section, to his fandom in the Washington Nationals, and a simple solution to fix baseball in the CBA.
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Can you smell it? Are your baseball senses tingling? Soon, the hot dogs will be on the grill, the popcorn poppin’, and the freshly cut green grass can excite the brain after a long cold winter. It is hard to believe that with all of the snow still on the ground in the DMV that we are just 35 days to Opening Day, and the first Spring Training games for the Washington Nationals are on Saturday.
We discussed the Nationals roster in a three part set of articles on the position players, the starting rotation, and the bullpen. And Sao Magnifico did his annual Who’s Who at Spring Training camp. All but one of the coaches is new. Even James Wood said he had mistaken a coach as a player. The photos we have seen need in-depth research. A photo of an unidentified catcher with tattoos on his left arm turned out to be bullpen catcher Jarrett Gonzalez.
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Spring Training history for the Washington Nationals goes back 21 years now to its beginnings in 2005. The setting was a town about an hour east of Orlando called Viera near the Melbourne beaches on the Atlantic Ocean side. Yes, that town near Cape Canaveral where they launched rockets. The inaugural year was a year of getting to know each other. Everything felt kind of rented and not permanent. Viera felt as temporary and contrived as RFK Stadium since we all knew that the team would be out of there in a matter of years.
A year later, Ryan Zimmerman entered his first Spring Training before the 2006 season, and the Virginia local guy immediately became a fan favorite. After a few years, he made it known that he was not a fan of the long preseasons in Florida, the wins don’t count, the stats don’t count for players like him, so let’s get north and start the season.
As the face of the franchise during most of his time as Employee No. 11, that sentiment of how Zim felt about Spring Training was likely shared with much of the clubhouse. Certainly the team’s former television network didn’t see much value in Spring Training either. But is this year different? Is 2026 the most important Spring Training in the 20+ years since the Nats came to DC?
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"Opening Day should be a National holiday"
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