Bring On the Nats!

I might be in the minority on this, but I'm excited about this series.  And not just because the Nationals' roster is sprinkled with ex-Tigers.  (Hello again, Dmitri Young, Robert Fick, and Nook Logan.  You guys helped provide quite a bit of content when I was trying to get settled back in March.)  I've never even been to Washington, D.C., yet I was excited when the Expos moved there.  Because, damn it, our nation's capital should have a baseball team.

I also got caught up in the effort to bring baseball to D.C. as a regular reader of the Washington Post, which really is the best fix if you're a news and politics junkie.  (I'm not much of one anymore, however.)  But the paper also has an outstanding sports section, with more great writers than any one publication should have to itself.  Kornheiser and Wilbon, of course.  Thomas Boswell.  Sally Jenkins.  Mike Wise.  And the guy who I think might be the best baseball beat writer working today, Barry Svrluga.

There are a lot of fantastic baseball books out there.  Svrluga's account of the Nationals' first year in D.C., National Pastime, should be considered one of them.  He blogs, he podcasts - he's the beat writer every team should have.

The Nats also have a ridiculously huge blogosphere for a team that's only in its third season of existence.  (Yes, I know - technically, the team has been around since 1969.)  Check out Federal Baseball's blogroll to get an idea of the sheer volume of their online following.

Okay, I'm probably making you sick, but I felt the need to explain my anticipation for what looks like a lackluster match-up.  And I did it without devoting an entire paragraph to Ryan Zimmerman, who is somehow the third baseman on almost every one of my fantasy baseball teams.