Nats Wasted No Time En Route To Playoffs
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By DERON SNYDER
The Nationals played seven forgettable, regrettable seasons in Washington before establishing themselves among the majors’ best teams this year. It seems like only yesterday that they compiled back-to-back 100-loss campaigns, while finishing last in the NL East five times in their first six seasons in D.C. There were times when you wondered if the Nats ever would field a winner.
D.C. baseball fans were elated to have a team again but still scarred from the Washington Senators experience, Parts I and II. The Expos ended the District’s 33-year streak without Major League Baseball when MLB relocated them from Montreal in 2005, but the clock on playoff-free baseball kept ticking, hitting 78 years entering this season.
Now the countdown has stopped and the Nats have arrived, sending waves of relief and joy through the city. Although the pace might have felt torturous, D.C. actually reached this point quicker than most cities that received new or relocated teams in MLB’s Expansion Era (post-1960).
“I was just thrilled to get a team in 2005,” said Steve Buckhantz, a native Washingtonian and longtime sports broadcaster who has called Wizards games for 15 seasons. Buckhantz remembers being taken out of elementary school by his grandfather to go watch Senators games on Opening Day.
“When I hear people say we haven’t had a winner since 2005, that was like last year,” he said. “Not only is what we’re experiencing still new, but to have a team this successful right now it doesn’t seem like it’s taken that long, only seven years. That’s crazy.”
