November 10, 2004
The Great Debate, Day 3
Denny McLain, Moderator
Now we turn to BallWonk's first statement. At the conclusion of his remarks, each side will have two daily statements remaining before we hear closing statements on Monday. I would like to remind the audience that they can vote as often as they like, up to once per day, in the ongoing poll between the Senators and the Grays.
In addition, viewers should feel free to comment on this debate, either in the comments section here or at BallWonk's blog. Speak up and be heard! Or anyway, that's what my lawyer told me before my first trial.
And I would like to remind Messrs. Wonk and Fred that my close, personal friend and former cellmate Fat Tony takes most unkindly to disparaging references to my own record as a pitcher for the Washington Senators. While I rise above petty obsessions with the past, Fat Tony wonders just how many games you think you could win if you had to rely on the 1971 Senators for run support.
Now we turn the floor over to BallWonk and the Grays.
BallWonk, Speaking for the Grays
Senators is "Washington born and bred"? Au contraire, the good people of Canada would say, pointing to the fact that a Google search for "Washington Senators" yields a paltry 147,000 hits while Googling "Ottawa Senators" generates more than 400,000. Type "www.senatorsbaseball.com" in your browser and do you find a page devoted to Washington's obsolete teams? No, you get the home page of the Harrisburg Senators - Washington's own farm club.
Mr. Fred, you've been hitting the Natty Boh a little too hard if you think anyone is fooled by your manipulations of baseball history. For one thing, the Oakland A's, Atlanta Braves, San Francisco Giants, and Los Angeles Dodgers were not named after previous big-league teams. They were those big-league teams. BallWonk isn't named after some guy who used to live in Minnesota; he is that guy.
The implication of Mr. Fred's specious argument is that teams die and are reborn when they move. And when the Repture comes, will some teams bodily ascend to heaven? Can the Devil Rays receive communion? Do you really expect us to believe that the Yankees have a soul?
And neither were the Milwaukee Brewers and Baltimore Orioles named after previous big-league teams in those cities. For one thing, no American League team was truly "big league" in 1901. But more importantly, the people who named the Brewers and the Orioles did not adopt those names to honor two-bit fly-by-night teams from the McKinley administration. No, the Brewers were named in honor of Milwaukee's proud status as America's beer capital. And the Orioles were named in honor of perhaps the greatest minor-league team in history, which played for 50 years after the original O's moved to the Bronx. Those fabulous minor league Orioles gave Babe Ruth his start and Buzz Arlett
a record-smashing cap to his career.
No, if we stick to the facts, here is the scorecard for clubs named in honor of past minor and negro versus major league teams:
TEAM - CHAMPIONSHIPS - (PENNANTS)MAJORS
Senators -- 0 (0)
Total -- 0 (0)MINORS/NEGRO
Angels -- 1 (1)
Marlins -- 2 (2)
Orioles -- 3 (6)
Padres -- 0 (2)
Royals -- 1 (2)
Total -- 7 (13)
The truth looks quite different when you take the beer goggles off, no?
You know what else looks different when you wake up the next morning? The Senators name.
Senators backers talk trash about the Grays for being too dull, too, well, gray. "It's not exciting enough," they say.
Which makes BallWonk think to himself, "What is that blue powder they're adding to their Mai Tais, and can I have some too?"
Because, in point of fact, Senators is a terrible name. The baseball gods stopped trying to make dull names after they hit the humdrum jackpot with Senators. It is the acme of boring.
For one thing, like all truly bad team names, it has three syllables. Count 'em. Sen. A. Tors. That's one syllable too many, just like the Devil Rays and Diamond Backs. Is that the company we want to keep? I say no.
And speaking of the company we'll keep, how about this:
Because, you know, what we really need is a baseball team named after Ted Kennedy and Jesse Helms. Nothing says baseball like Hillary Clinton and Strom Thurmond. The plain fact is that America hates its Senators. In the 11 presidential elections since 1964, seven times Americans have faced a choice between a current or former U.S. Senator and Some Other Guy. They've chosen Some Other Guy all seven times.
In fact, the baseball Senators and real Senators have this in common: In the 20th Century, each has won the big prize just once.
Americans just don't like Senators. And Washington, without Senators of our own, resents them even more. Twice since moving to Washington, BallWank has nearly been run down by SUV-driving U.S. Senators from his own party. Who hasn't been waiting at a restaurant for tables said to be an hour away only to watch a Senator and his party breeze right by? Heck, when George Lucas needed new bad guys for his Star Wars prequels, he made them Senators.
But the fact that by naming our team the Senators, we would be associating with the hundred least popular people in America is beside the point. The point is that Senators is a boring name.
The U.S. Senate has its very own TV channel, broadcast to every home in America with cable. Have you ever watched C-SPAN 2? Live coverage of the Senate makes watching dead grass wilt feel as exciting as a Jackie Chan movie. Pranksters and satirists have tried broadcasting fish tanks and fireplaces on TV, but as yet no one has found a way to make television more boring than live coverage of the U.S. Senate.
Want to see just how exciting Senators really are? Take a look, and try not to fall asleep:
It's like hypnosis, but painful
80-year-old men sitting in chairs. Feel the excitement!
This is what we should name our team after?
Still awake out there?
You know what's really exciting? Committee meetings
Sometimes, C-SPAN 2 shows nothing happening at all
Senators more exciting than Grays? Puh-leeeze. Who, given a choice between watching the U.S. Senate all day and watching gray paint dry on the side of a battleship, wouldn't choose the paint?
And what do you call the Senators for short? Sens doesn't work. S's is unpronounceable. Tors is the protagonist of a bad fantasy novel. For generations, Washingtonians called their Senators the Nats, short for Nationals, proving that Senators is so boring that even Washington fans reject it.
So while I admit that Grays lacks the drama of Rangers or Pirates, the plain truth is Senators is worse.
And what's so special about the Senators anyway? The last time the Senators played in Washington, only 655,156 people showed up. That's more than 1,000 fewer people per game than the 2004 Expos drew in Montreal. If we assume that the average fan attended three games in the 1971 season, that means that there were only about 220,000 real Senators fans in Washington when the team left.
The Census Bureau tells us that the average American moves once every five years and dies once every 70 years. Factoring in relocation and mortality, there should be only 2,844 real Senators fans left in the Washington area. Here's how the numbers work out:
YEAR -- SENATORS FANS
1971 -- 218,385
1976 -- 109,193
1981 -- 54,597
1986 -- 27,299
1991 -- 13,650
1996 -- 6, 825
2001 -- 3,413
2004 (est) -- 2,844
That's about as many people as attend an average Potomac Cannons game. In fact, with annual attendance above 170,000, the Cannons probably have about 57,000 fans in the Washington area, or 20 for every remaining Senators fan. Just days ago, 59.5 million Americans voted against a Senator for president. For every remaining Senators fan in Washington, 21,000 Americans voted against the Senator on Election Day.
That makes Senators even less popular than Devil Rays.
The choice in this debate remains as simple as ever: Do we want to name our team after the least popular and most boring institution in America? Do we want to associate our ballclub with the likes of Trent Lott and Fritz Hollings? With losers like Barry Goldwater, George McGovern, Walter Mondale, Bob Dole, and John Kerry? When America thinks of our team, do we want them to think of boring losers that nobody likes?
BallWonk hopes not. BallWonk believes Washington can do - should do - better.
Posted by Fred at November 10, 2004 02:50 PM