Baseball adopts Nationals name

The Expos were rechristened the Washington Nationals yesterday with a few glitches and a tussle — but just in time for the Christmas shopping season.

The District’s Major League Baseball (MLB) team revealed its new name, logo and colors — red, white, blue and gold — at a celebratory lunchtime gathering at Union Station.

The nickname and the color scheme, first reported by The Washington Times on Nov. 5, are a nod to the city’s baseball history. A team called the Nationals played in Washington during the late 1800s and again from 1901 to 1956.

The Nationals’ red hats, which bear a script “W,” are a slightly modified version of the design used by the Washington Senators from 1969 to 1971.

“Baseball is about our way of life,” D.C. Mayor Anthony A. Williams said. “It’s about community. It’s about opportunity. And now, with the Nationals, it’s about our nation’s capital, Washington, D.C.”

The feel-good event in the grand hall was interrupted when a protester opposing the District’s plan for public financing of a ballpark in Southeast stormed the stage and began shouting into the microphone.

Adam Eidinger, a member of the D.C. Statehood Green Party, jumped onstage with a sign reading “Stop the $614 million stadium giveaway.”

Mr. Eidinger shouted, “This is a bad deal, people.”

Mr. Eidinger was confronted by a prominent local sports publicist, 76-year-old Charlie Brotman, who began to drag him off the stage in a tussle that nearly knocked over the lectern.

Others joined the fray, and Mr. Eidinger was led away to the cheers of the crowd. He was detained about 15 minutes, then released.

“I’m breathing hard,” Mr. Brotman said after the incident. “This has nothing to do with a heavyweight championship fight coming to town.”

That wasn’t the only hitch with yesterday’s announcement.

Through much of the day, Major League Baseball’s online store, shop.mlb.com, showed a blue hat with the script “W” as the home hat and the red version of the same as the Nationals’ away cap.

In fact, the red hat, worn by D.C. and team officials at yesterday’s announcement, will be the version worn at RFK Stadium. The blue hat will either be an away or alternate cap.

“There was some confusion about that, I think, but the red hat is the home hat,” Nationals President Tony Tavares said. “The ultimate fate of the blue is all part of the uniform design we haven’t quite finished yet.”

Story Continues →