In 2005, when the Montreal Expos became the Washington Nationals, the owner of the company I worked for, ever the marketer searching for fresh signage opportunities, became one of the franchise’s first sponsors. Back then the line was not long for companies eager to jump onto the team’s bandwagon and the price was certainly right. Moreover the partnership came with perks, and as one of our sales staff’s bigger hitters, I was able to partake in most of them.
At the time Major League Baseball owned the team. With no new ownership group yet on the horizon, the Nats’ marketing and sales department was working on a shoestring budget that year. They focused much of their efforts on making sure those who had taken the leap of faith and signed on received access to the very basic menu of goodies they had to offer. Early in the season they flew my boss and I down to Atlanta for a game against the Braves. I don’t believe we were put up in the Ritz, but the downtown hotel was more than plush. Even better was a round of golf we were treated to at a local club.
However, best of all came that evening at the game when, dining from a nice buffet in the Turner Field VIP area, Henry Aaron ambled over to our table to shake hands. I felt weak in the knees as I rose to try and make intelligent conversation with the game’s greatest living legend! As he smiled and reached his elegant hand out to me, the best I could do was “Mr. Aaron, Ernie Banks will always be my number 1 but I God you’re a very close number 2!” He smiled graciously and said simply “Ernie is a good friend. You must be from Chicago.” I started to say yes I was and saw him get no-hit by Ken Holtzman but he was already pivoting to someone else. It was more than enough.
The spring of 2005 was a great sports period for me. Tiger won his fourth green jacket at Augusta, finally beating pesky and unheralded Chris DeMarco on the first hole of sudden death; I had 50-1 winner Giacomo in the Kentucky Derby (although I only got 28-1 when I bet my $80 on him in an early March future pool and favorite Afleet Alex getting necked out of second by 70-1 Closing Argument cost me a multi-thousand exacta payoff); and I could enjoy near any Nats home game from box seats about 12 rows up from home plate. Winning or losing was beside the point. Like glorious Redskin games from years past, Metro dropped you off a stone’s throw from RFK; the whole experience couldn’t have been easier.
So, after more than a decade of devout fantasy baseball participation and the calculated cynicism it engendered, I once again became a genuine fan. It was the Nats or bust for me… emphasis often on bust. Indeed the 2005 Nats were a team only a real partisan could love, frustratingly uneven, offering hope and futility in even doses. Like most expansion franchises, the lineup was a hodgepodge of journeymen and diminished stars, rookies and cast offs existing on the margins. Yet and still, there was one name in the team’s game guide that stood out above all others, granting enduring credibility follies on the field could not tarnish….. Manager Frank Robinson.
Class can’t be faked; it can be earned, but often is simply a trait people either possess or are bereft of….. you know it when in its presence. With Frank Robinson it stemmed from both avenues. When speaking of baseball royalty there is usually a two camps approach. There is the old school – i.e Cobb, Ruth, Gehrig, Wagner, Johnson et al – and there is the “modern” game elites, who begin with DiMaggio and progress through Mays, Mantle, Aaron, Koufax, Gibson …. and of course Frank Robinson.
When Robinson retired his 586 home runs trailed only Aaron, Ruth and Mays; could it possibly get more elite than that? He won MVPs in both leagues, the result of the worst trade in sports history…. the Baltimore Orioles sent Milt Pappas to the Cincinnati Reds for their best player, who front office idiots figured was over-the-hill at 31! Robinson showed just how feeble he was, carrying the Orioles on his back to the 66’ World Championship over Koufax and Drysdale’s LA Dodgers.
Of course, by 2005 Robinson had long ago broken historic ground by becoming Baseball’s first black manager when he took over the Cleveland Indians as player-manager in 1975. Thirty years later, his career now squarely in the rear-view, he would slog through the Nats’ first season in DC along with the rest of us, generously granting his experience and wisdom to an enterprise often within the throes of futility, but showing gleams of promise. Whether it was calmly taking somebody to task for shoddy fielding or getting tossed for arguing an umpire decision on the base paths, offering lessons to rookie Ryan Zimmerman, who had Cal Ripken potential written all over him, or mercilessly giving a starter the early hook after being roughed up, “Robby” was the grizzled face of a team hoping for a future, even as it often stunk up the joint in the present.
Incredibly, at season’s end, the Nats stood at a respectable 81-81, .500 ball from a big bunch of nothing much! And all played out in a venue that wasn’t simply dying, it had already passed on and was now resurrected. Even so, stale hot dog buns and nasty restrooms only accentuated things to my eyes. The 2006 season was a struggle for the team as its roster limitations had their say, but also saw the emergence of a well heeled new ownership group, who showed their gratitude to my company by choosing an industry competitor at our expense for a new sponsorship deal, and their regard to Robinson by promptly firing him as manager. As I said before, you know class, or lack of it, when you see it. By the time Nationals Park opened in 2008, my privileged access to games and the club was history.
I reminisced about that wonderful first season last night watching today’s incarnation wipe their now pristine field with the Cardinals to take a 3-0 lead in the NLCS. Despite a recent history of choking up playoff advancement, there is zero chance this squad isn’t going to the World Series, the first in DC since Franklin Roosevelt was President. Only Ryan Zimmerman remains from the 2005 roster; and while the Hall of Fame will never mistake him for Cal, he has remained the face of the franchise while providing solidly consistent production and leadership.
Meanwhile, even though the great man passed in February, if and when the Nats attain championship glory, Frank Robinson must be one of the first names mentioned when thanking those responsible. Nobody deserves this franchise’s gratitude more than its first skipper, who defined what baseball excellence is and added the luster a struggling new team required to succeed. Washington may have been his last stop, but to him, and us, it was as important as the rest of them. He earned what he is owed. BC