Early Sunday evening, keeping an eye on the New England Patriots’ further encroachment on the history books, I thought about being a sports fan in D.C. during a reign of general competent management by a majority of the area’s sports teams, accompanied by general on-field/court/rink winning. Nothing dynastic, mind you, just a generally consistent, healthy dose of winning boasted by most of the teams in town.
These were, necessarily, hypothetical thoughts I was having.
Now consider what the good folks in Boston are enjoying these days. In October the Red Sox won their second World Series in the past four years. The remarkably rebuilt Celtics are serious contenders for the NBA title this season. And the Patriots? Perhaps a perfect season, and heavy favorites to win what would be their fourth Super Bowl title this decade. The Bruins are Beantown’s weak sister, but even they’re five games above .500 this season. It’s an embarassment of sports riches in Beantown.
Meanwhile, here, we have Daniel Synder, the no-name Nats, and really bad ice.
At least we’re getting a nice new stadium next spring.
My Sunday evening thoughts, prompted by envy of New England, centered on this query: precisely when was the arrival of the present sports downturn in D.C., and is there any probable hope for better times in the foreseeable future?
Let’s first stipulate that by virture of the Unholy Trinity of the Hardwood — Abe Pollin, Susan O’Malley, and Wes Unseld — there was no competency to be achieved there, post ‘79. So unlike Boston, we in D.C. couldn’t have all the major sports teams firing on all cylinders. The Bullets-Wiz of the ’80s and ’90s remained Hechingers while the rest of the NBA went Home Depot. But D.C. in the ’80s had the Super Bowl Skins and a couple of 100-pt. Caps’ clubs (who also always made the playoffs). Title-winning Georgetown hoops, too, was quite strong then.
(Being baseball-less until recently, we Washingtonians who sought summer sport had to borrow the O’s, and they, too, won a title in the ’80s (their last), and showcased the superstar shortstop, Cal. Then Peter Angelos arrived and we all had to stop liking them.)
I thought about Joe Gibbs’ sudden, shocking retirement in March 1993, (he pulled a Vermeil) (without the incessant sobbing), and wondered if I might not mark that as the anchor for D.C.’s lodging in the Bermuda Triangle of sports hell. Turns out, 1993 was an infamous year for us here. While Gibbs departed then, leaving the ill-prepared Skins staggering in a leadership void and launching them into 15 years of lousy-to-mediocre coaches, and mostly lousy seasons, one Peter Angelos arrived (via an ambulance he chased) as majority owner of the Orioles. Likely we didn’t realize it at the time, but the descent was on.
March 9, 1998, was a particularly bleak day for D.C. sports: Washington Post Caps’ beat reporter Bob Fachet passed. A legend was lost and soon thereafter hockey, institutionally, incurred nominal — but not professional — coverage by the paper.
Nineteen ninety six was no peach of a year, either. That year the Redskins bid farewell to the NFL’s most charming stadium, RFK — also one of the most intimidating for visiting teams — and took up residence in a place called Raljon (really), an immense, aesthetic-free mausoleum breeding nightmare Beltway traffic, seat licenses, and, eventually, the arrests of spectators who’d dare try and enter Raljon without ponying up an American Express number for parking fees. It was like replacing Jackie Onasis with Britney Spears.
(It would be most interesting to poll Redskin season ticket holders today and ask which they’d have preferred seeing 12 years ago: millions spent adding 20,000 seats and luxury boxes to RFK, as part of D.C. bid for a future summer Olympics hosting, or the super-sized sinkhole in PG County.)
But as malignancies against winning go, we in D.C. were just getting started.
Nineteen ninety nine brought The Danny to D.C. In with bravado and arrogance, out with decorum and tact. And winning. Also, out with dozens of long-time Redskins employees, who were immediately pink-slipped. Danny’s been the de facto GM of the Skins from day one, even bringing his outsized arrogance to the team’s draft war room. Robert Kraft he ain’t.
Worse, he’s young.
By now we’re seeing a trend: black clouds over most of our sports teams, and with two of sports’ most storied franchises, the Skins and Os, the arrival of ***hole owners. But the Caps during this time are managing rather well — even advancing to the Stanley Cup Finals in 1998.
Then July 11, 2001, arrived. More and more it appears as if the $11 million Curse will plague the Caps for the entirety of this decade.
In 2002, Gary Williams’ Maryland Terrapins won the NCAA hoops title, seemingly leading us Washingtonians out of the wasteland of our sporting woe. At the time I thought it the advent of Maryland’s ACC supremacy, with Williams dominating schoolboy recruiting in D.C. But the past five years have seen the Terps struggle just to reach the March field of 65, more often than not missing it. And Gary loses out on a lot of local studs. Meanwhile, Georgetown’s hoops program got back on track.
I mentioned that a second part to my Sunday thoughts was a wondering of signs portending sunnier days locally. The best I can come up with is “Maybe” but “Don’t hold your breath.” On at least three fronts, local fans have to wait upon the visitation of death to three owners to usher in any plausible hope for a renewal of competency compromised the past decade plus. On the ice, Mike Green’s emerging as perhaps a 20-goaler on the back end, a scoring presence the Caps haven’t had there since Sergei Gonchar, adds another vital component to the rebuild. But more and more I’m subscribing to the opinion that the true winning core for the Caps isn’t yet in town (it’s in North Dakota, Alberta, and perhaps Quebec).
So let them enjoy their gaudy winning ways up in Beantown. Not much of a drinking town anyway.
12 Comments
My wife and I have talked about this for awhile. The DC teams have stunk for as long as we can recall. We’re Maryland grads and were very excited to watch the 2002 National Champion basketball team seem to revive interesting in athletics in the DC area. We also relished in the return of Ralph Friedgen to the Terrapins and the ensuing Orange, Peach, and Gator Bowls.
But the burner has been turned down at Maryland the past few years with lackluster teams that either don’t make it to a bowl or just barely make it into postseason basketball play. Hopefully this year will be different.
Good read. Buddies and I have been having similar discussions as of late, watching Boston’s rise to the peak of sports greatness while Washington’s teams continue to languish.
At the same time, Bill Simmons has ceased to be funny. His woe is Boston shtik just doesn’t cut it anymore when you’re defending a now 13-0 team against allegations of cheating and running up the score.
A. At least we’re not Philadelphia. No professional team from there has won anything for 24 years, and unless the Flyers pull it off, it’s not happening this year either.
B. The Wizards are doing well with two of the best players in the game (albeit one of them injured) and a general manager who really knows what he’s doing. (I mean, c’mon. He got Caron Butler for Kwame Brown!)
C. I’m hoping that next year is the year the Redskins put it together, provided Campbell comes back healthy.
D. Even if the Caps don’t put it together, we get to watch Alex Ovechkin!
E. Did I mention that we’re not Philadelphia?
Ahh what a depressing entry… I know I know its true, but its still depressing.
As a Skins STH — YES. EASILY YES. I’d even give up my tix if they moved back to RFK.
While you bring up the Terps and the national championship, its hard to put a college team on the list because while a good chunk of people love the terps, a lot of others may despise them.
I will offer up DC United and their 4 championships. (ITS SOMETHING)
I have faith. DC will pull out of this rut. We’ll be on top. Doubt we’ll all be on top in all sports at once, but we will rise once again.
I believe.
To clarify my previous post… I’d give up being a Skins STH, cause they’d cut the seats by half. So my nosebleed seats at the Ex would no longer be available at RFK.
VT – Truly I did not omit DC United from my thoughts here; I considered referencing their significant success. But in the context of this discussion as it relates to New England, I deemed the claim a bit of a stretch. For better or for worse, soccer remains solidly on the fringe of America’s popular sporting interests. And your point about the parochialism with college sports is certainly true, but likely we all recall how the region reacted to George Mason’s storybook run of two seasons ago.
P&S I guess that you weren’t around in the 50s & 60s. In those days, the Skins were happy with 2-3 wins a year & the Nats probably never got over .500 in the 22 years I watched them prior to their 2nd move. It is true that the owners are wretched, but as you say 3 of them will die & then things will change. Its ALMOST like rooting for death.
You can add the MLS’s Revolution to the list of New England success teams. While they have yet to win the MLS Cup, they have lost in the finals 4 times including the last three straight.
While yes I do see your argument with Mason/terps. I was grasping onto my last days of college while the terps won it all, so I didn’t witness the lovefest.
But I only brought up the United because I’m trying not to buy into the fact that this great city has been titless for that long. And even if you did count it, like Gustafsson said, the Revolution have been knocking on the door for quite some time.
Counting the Revolution is tough because, while yes, they’re knocking on the door, they’re much like the Buffalo Bills that way. How many championship games does a team have to lose is such a short span of time for that to start to count against them? (Or does it ever?)
Leaving RFK took a lot of the killer instinct out of the vibe of the city. Suddenly instead of whole-hearted support, now there was a revolt among the fans with how they were being treated. (Also, no bouncing bleachers, and no longer allowed to bring in coolers of food.) The sterile place had more seats but much much less personality.
I think realistically that was the begining of the darkness. Yes sports is a business, but it’s usually a good idea not to piss off the fans too much. Yes teams win and lose, but the treatment of the fans should always be high.
While the Jagr experiment backfired, I do not fault the team for taking the risk signing him to start with. Honestly, if we’d been told back in 2001 that the Caps could have had Jagr for three scrubs and didn’t take it, I know I would have been aghast as would many of you (even if you don’t want to admit it). The mistake in the dealing was the huge contract so soon after signing him. And the fault lies with him quitting on the team (by his own admission).
Hey, severla other Terps teams have won NCAA championships ya know. The women’s hoops team in 2006, the men’s soccer team in 2005 and the field hockey team several times. And we’ve had 2 Final Fours team in the area in the last two years. Plus the Raves Super Bowl a few years back. Granted, that’s Balmer, but you did include the O’s.
I think the dismalness of the ‘Skins tends to color everyone’s preception of sports around here. We’re in much better shape than Chicago overall, and Minneapolis, and Seattle, and Orlando, and more than a few others. I’m sure there are tons of areas that would love to have had 4 Final Four men’s team plus a women’s Championship in less than 7 years.
“We’re in much better shape than Chicago, Minneapolis….”
Excluding other sports, Minneapolis/St. Paul, and the state of Minnesota, have enjoyed several WCHA Championships, not to mention back to back NCAA hockey championships in ‘02 and ‘03, and numerous Frozen Four teams. To a Minnesotan, hockey championships are the most important.
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