Baseball

Capital return: D.C. elated with MLB back

President Bush kicks off first game in Washington since ’71

Evan Vucci / AP

President Bush throws out the ceremonial first pitch at the Washington Nationals home opener. Thursday's 5-3 win by the Nationals was the first major league game in Washington since 1971.

Needless to say, the players never got this kind of treatment in Montreal, where crowds were small and some “home” games were farmed out to Puerto Rico to boost revenue, but they also looked like a group that couldn’t wait for the hype to die down.

“It’s a lot of stuff we’re not used to,” outfielder Brad Wilkerson said. “Montreal seemed so much easier. It’s taxing, but I’d rather have it that way than no recognition at all.”

There already have been numerous milestone dates in baseball’s return to Washington, which had been without a team since the expansion Senators departed for Texas 34 years ago. There was the relocation announcement on Sept. 29, followed by the opening of spring training and the first spring training game in February, an exhibition game against the New York Mets at RFK Stadium on April 3, then the season opener at Philadelphia a day later.

But the last of the welcome-back parties was the biggest. Tickets for 46,000-seat RFK were hard to come by, even for some well-heeled Washingtonians. Leaders in Congress announced there would be no votes after 5 p.m. so lawmakers and staffers could attend the game, and the event offered natural opportunities for some friendly Republican-Democrat banter. Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., a New York Yankees fans, noted the Nationals’ opponent hailed from the home state of Republican Sen. John McCain.

“And, of course,” Lieberman said, “I wouldn’t miss a chance to see Sen. McCain’s team lose.”

President Bush’s first pitch came 95 years to the day after William Howard Taft tossed out a ball before a Senators-Athletics game on April 14, 1910.

Bush, a former part-owner of the Texas Rangers, was the 12th president given the honor of throwing out a first pitch in Washington, and the first since Richard Nixon in 1969. After the Senators left, presidents performed the ceremony in other cities; Bush did the honors in St. Louis last year.

The Nationals had the scoreboard ready: The name George W. Bush was written with the “W” in curly script, mimicking the design on the Nationals’ hats.

“Somebody said, ’How do you describe the presidency?’ I said it is a decision-making job. I’ve got a decision to make today. Do I go with a fastball or do I go with a slider?” President Bush said at a meeting of the American Society of Newspaper Editors before the game.

The Nationals were the last team to play a home game this season, which is probably for the best given the compressed schedule for renovating the stadium. Officials are still trying to figure out how to keep the new batting tunnel from flooding.

Perhaps the biggest surprise was that Nationals arrived in town with a winning record, even though they are playing with much of the same roster that finished last in 2004 in Montreal.

“Believe me, this club will not finish last in the National League East,” manager Frank Robinson said. “I’ve heard people say this is the Montreal Expos in Washington Nationals uniforms. Those people don’t know what they’re talking about. They are not the Montreal Expos in Washington Nationals uniforms. They are the Washington Nationals.”

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