No base hit for D.C.?

The crocuses have raised their heads of a variety of hues, the birds that wintered in the South wing toward summer homes in the North, and the spring training camps of the American and National baseball leagues break up as the regular season opens.

Except in Washington, D.C.

What’s wrong with this picture? The New York Yankees and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays opened their seasons in Tokyo, the capital of Japan, but no American or National League team will play a game in the capital of the United States.

There are few things that better illustrate the blockheadedness rampant in the baseball commissioner’s office.

It’s a crying shame that more than a generation has grown up in the Washington metropolitan area without a team to cheer for, a team that could provide a focus of unity for the community during the dog days of summer.

Washington has been without its own team since Bob Short as the owner of the Senators did everything possible to alienate the fans here. After years of struggle, he finally succeeded and slipped his team away in a move as callous and almost as cowardly as the way the football Colts were sneaked out of Baltimore in the dead of night.

Which brings us to another point: Just as Baltimore fans were never willing to accept the Washington Redskins as their football team, so Washington area fans will never accept the Baltimore Orioles as their baseball team, no matter how many doctored polls and surveys Orioles owner Peter Angelos produces out of his hip pocket — the same pocket where he keeps his wallet.

I used to make one visit a season to see Cal Ripkin and his buddies play at old Memorial Stadium, and then at Camden Yards. However, when I discovered Mr. Angelos was using that as a club to keep Washington from having a team, I haven’t been back.

And that has been the reaction of thousands of Washington fans.

As a matter of fact, I don’t even go to Bowie Bay Sox games because that is an Orioles farm team, and attendance there might give aid and comfort to Mr. Angelos.

You might expect a president of the United States, being a baseball person, would want a team in the town where he lives, but that does not seem to be the case these days.

Then there are some who watch President Bush in his clumsier moments and just shrug, saying to themselves: “Well, what do you expect. He’s a former owner of a baseball team.”

One can see him beetling away in the Oval Office to enhance homeland security by keeping a baseball team out of the nation’s capital. All those noisy, rowdy crowds might pose a threat to presidential safety.

On the other hand, looking at the greed and foolish blindness engulfing baseball, you have to wonder if you really want to get involved. Any sport that can’t figure a way out of the financial sinkhole of the Montreal franchise deserves no respect.

Any sport that disdains a market that is bigger than many of its current homes — and far bigger than any other without a team — deserves no respect.

Any sport without a team in the nation’s capital does not deserve respect — and can’t call itself major. This puts baseball somewhere behind soccer and women’s basketball.

Until Washington gets a team, the American and National leagues should drop the pretense of Major League Baseball and label themselves Division 1 Baseball. The minor leagues would be Division 2, 3 and so on.

In the meantime, I guess I’ll be seeing you at D.C. United soccer games or the baseball games down in Prince William County.

Stroube Smith is a copy editor for The Washington Times and a free-lance writer.