The Home for Washington Nationals Game Talk

Right field gates at Nationals Park with Orange entry; Photo by Sol Tucker for TalkNats

The Washington Nationals players had to arrive hours before today’s scheduled practice for another round of COVID rapid tests as well as submit to samples that are sent out to the lab. All eligible players who met the protocols were allowed on the field. The first player who emerged before noon was Max Scherzer who will take the mound tomorrow afternoon as the scheduled Opening Day starter.

Trying to pinpoint when this first game would be played was like hitting a moving target after the large-scaled COVID positives that claimed 4 players as positives for the virus, as well as 7 more players in total were traced for contact with those four players. In all, four games were postponed and five days off of the regular season calendar.  Continue reading →

Photo by Sol Tucker for TalkNats

All of the past was going to be left in the past on Opening Day as 5,000 fans were supposed to be the representative core to cheer a re-raising of the 2019 World Series banner. A tradition with World Series winners is to hoist a World Series banner or flag on their Opening Day which the Nats were not able to do in Nationals Park in 2020 in front of their fans.

With the first series of the season cancelled due to multiple COVID positives, the Nats are without 35% of what was supposed to have been their 26-man roster as 9-players are out with four having tested positive for COVID.

That number could rise more given the lag times of when COVID would show up on a test. There is pressure to start the season on Monday against the Braves. We will see if that happens. If not, the Nats have a scheduled series in Los Angeles next weekend. Since that is a road game not subject to D.C. rules, would the Nats be able to get back some of those 9 players? Will the team be so out of rhythm that it won’t matter? Continue reading →

Medical workers carry the weight of the world on their shoulders as they are our angels in fighting COVID; Mural art by Melbourne Murals

If you thought COVID-19 was behind us, we got the stark reminder and a jolt of reality that it is not. Washington Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo confirmed yesterday that one player (not identified) had tested positive for COVID, and today he said that two more players tested positive with the possibility of a fourth player who could be positive. From here, who knows where this heads as our own Nats could have created their own super-spreader situation. Continue reading →

Photo provided courtesy of Mary Beth Koeth

While Jeff Passan’s keyboard clicked off 5,902 words for his ESPN cover story of  Juan Soto, you must appreciate every part of what went into this piece. Titled, “WELCOME TO JUAN SOTO’S MLB” with the kicker, “No one owns the batter’s box like the 22-year-old phenom — who soon might just shuffle his way into history,” Passan wrote one of the best articles ever written about the Nats’ superstar outfielder. The cover photo was taken by portrait photographer, Mary Beth Koeth. She will always be linked to Soto in an artistic sense. When your photography reaches Koeth’s level, it is art.  Continue reading →

Bucky Harris
Manager 1954 Washington Senators
Age 57

Baseball Lifers have The Look.   Years of seeing out upon the diamonds with a distant gaze produces a common appearance to the men that inhabit the dugouts.  Endless hours of absorbing the sights of the game, calculating a next move, and assessing skills on both sides of the ledger all set against a backdrop of constant uncertainty take their toll.  They all entered the game as clear-skinned youths.  But, the cumulative effect the game takes is written clearly in aged faces.  The “Crows’ Feet” etched into the corners of their eyes are not so much like gentle river deltas meeting salt water.  Rather the chasms are rough and jagged-edged as if they were made by chisels and hammers struck into sandstone.  Tool marks from mishits predominate as if the tiny invisible craftsmen who struck the permanent blows were in a hurry.    To look at a Baseball Lifer’s face is to see what decades under pressure does.  It’s all there encoded into those ragged cavernous Crows’ Feet.  Amassed in the leathery braille in no particular order are hires, firings, blown saves, wins, blown leads, injured stars, playoff losses, celebrations, lost friends, and Opening Days.

Continue reading →