Sports Fix, The Features

Everything’s Not Lost: A Nats Postseason Reflection

2012 10 01 - 5478-5486 - DC - Nationals Ballpark
courtesy of thisisbossi

The 2012 Washington Nationals can and will be remembered in a few different ways. Some will see it as a successful season riddled with historic milestones achieved by a team who competed well beyond anyone’s spring training predictions. Others will remember it for the gut-wrenching two-run loss induced by a ninth inning collapse versus the World Champion St. Louis Cardinals in Game Five of the National League Division Series after being up 6-0.

But maybe there’s a happy medium between the two extremes?

Washington baseball in the modern era organically evolved into a devotion-based fan obsession upon the May inception of #Natitude. The play-on-words marketing strategy, endorsed by the Nationals’ Chief Operating Officer Andy Feffer, peaked people’s interest enough to follow the team on its journey toward becoming a contender. And this is all in addition to the incredibly devout season ticket holders and fans who’ve been supportive of the team since 2005 — the Nationals’ inaugural season.

Since that time, the already active community of voices in support of the team on Twitter has increased in size, seats in the ballpark were filled willingly, and a Photoshop trend became the norm for expressing one’s thoughts surrounding the team and its players. Record attendance numbers and television ratings were tallied. The Nats made it to the playoffs for the first time in team history. These are all positive changes when compared to season’s past.

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Alexandria, All Politics is Local, Arlington, Technology, The District

Why I Love DC: Tom Bridge

This is the first of a series of posts from our authors, designed to give you a peek into who we are, beyond what you’ve read from us in the past. We’ll be featuring two authors a day for the next week in this space, as well as our usual features. We hope you enjoy!

I never intended to fall in love with DC.

Hell, I never intended to stay here so long. I got here in July of 2000, eight years ago this past weekend, after being offered a tech job in Courthouse. I was supposed to be working with a little startup, my own little piece of the dotconomy. Until they went broke. Before I even started. I asked the leasing office what my options were. The secretary snapped her gum, and said, “Well, there are provisions for death or bankruptcy.”

Neither was appealing.

Clock (Closeup)

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