I want to borrow a device used by one of the best sportswriters alive, Joe Posnanski:

Since the start of the 1990-1991 NBA season through last night:

Team A: 637-1,006 (.388), 5 playoff appearances, 1 playoff series win

Team B: 599-1045 (.364), 4 playoff appearances, 1 playoff series win

OK, just by looking at the title of this post and the pic of a suffering Flip, you can probably figure out one of these teams is the Washington Bullets/Wizards (Team A).  The other one? The much-maligned, and perennially-mocked, Los Angeles Clippers. Let that sink in a for minute… Since 1990, the Wizards have averaged just under two wins (1.8) more per season than these guys:

The similarities don’t end there.  Busted former #1 overall draft picks?  Check (Michael Olowokandi and Kwame Brown). NBA legends who stayed way too long in an effort to rebuild their adopted hometown teams? Check (Elgin Baylor and Wes Unseld). Obnoxious season ticket holders? Check (Bill Simmons [before you blind loyalists filet me in the comments, relax: he doesn't care and this is a joke] and Robin Ficker).

What’s worse is that for the last 20+ years, the Wizards actually tried to win. Long-time owner/community devotee Abe Pollin was just about the exact opposite of Clippers owner/community pariah Donald Sterling: Pollin personally funded TWO arenas for his teams to play in (tell me the last time an owner did that) and gave big dollars to players like Juwan Howard, Chris Webber, Jerry Stackhouse, Antawn Jamison, Mitch Richmond and some dude named “Gilbert” all in an effort to remain competitive (which mostly failed). He hired the greatest player of all time (albeit not to play, mostly); handing over a piece of the team in the process.

All Sterling has ever done is force the trade or release of marquee players who grew too pricey for the franchise.  Oh, and for the players the Clippers do manage to keep, Sterling doles out verbal abuse to them that’d make Mel Gibson blush. It’s safe to say any success this franchise has enjoyed has come despite terrible ownership.  Does that make Washington’s ineptitude worse?  Hundreds of millions of dollars is an awful lot to pay for 38 wins over 20 seasons.

So, what do we make of all this?  Well, with new owner Ted Leonsis’ commitment to the franchise, as well as his success with the Washington Capitals, one might surmise the big man knows what he’s doing.  But for a large-market like DC that loves its basketball, Ted’s going to have to do a lot more than just change the name.

Just look how nice that ballpark looks. The new Target Field, home of the Minnesota Twins, looks exactly like what a new and modern baseball stadium should look like. If you don’t believe me, check out the photos from their opening day, the Twins won 5-2 over the Red Sox.  It is, by all accounts, a gorgeous park.  I only wish I had a brand new park to go to that fits so nicely into the cityscape and looks gorgeous on the outside and inside but sadly, I live in Washington DC and the team I follow is the Washington Nationals.

See, the Washington Nationals did just get a brand new baseball stadium, it opened up in 2008, was paid for by the District of Columbia and essentially handed over to the Nationals after being built.  Not taking into consideration how the stadium was built, you’d think I, the baseball fan, would be grateful for not having to watch any more baseball games at RFK Stadium anymore.  You might think that, but strangely enough, while watching games at Nationals Park is a newer and cleaner experience it isn’t necessarily better.  Nationals Park is yet another example of the Washington Nationals franchise missing a chance to have something special and settling for being mediocre.

The best thing I can say about this stadium is that it is new and therefore, relatively clean.  Also, it does have one gorgeous and gigantic big screen tv in the outfield…that doesn’t always work right.  That is about it.  Those 2 things.  Clean stadium, big TV.  Everything else about the park is extremely non-descript, except for the ill-conceived “motion” statues they have in the main entryway to the park.

Does that look like a good idea to you?  Walter Johnson has like 5 arms there.  Kinda weird.  Pretty awful art in my mind.

I understood the want to get away from the red bricked baseball stadiums that had been built before.  I understood the want to have a color scheme to “fit into Washington”…i just don’t think that making the stadium look like HUD was the right call.  Also, doing away with limestone for concrete was a great budget call…but it looks like it.  Its cheap and ugly.  I can go on like this for hours really, but for word count’s sake, i’ll cut it short here by saying, the building was built cutting corners and it shows.

Now, this doesn’t mean I am not going to stop going to the park, its not a horrible experience by any means…just a very bland one.  Its yet another opportunity missed by the Washington Nationals.  A constant reminder of a million ways that the team could’ve tried harder to not take for granted the many baseball starved fans of this city and do something special for them.  Sure you can say “but Chimp, DC built the Stadium, not the Nationals, blame them!” but to that I say, nothing was stopping the Nationals owners from chipping in some cash to make the stadium a magical place.  They didn’t and they got a building built by the government and it looks like a government building. Instead of a shrine to baseball, Nationals Park has all the charm of  a convention center.

I’ll still go to the games, but i’m not going to lie and say that it is going to be a beautiful day at the park.  It’l just be ok…and man am I jealous of what they have up there in Minnesota.