MLB Opening Day is here! But does it feel like it for us Nationals fans?

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Take me out to the ballgame.

Today is opening day.

Does it feel like it?

In our city?

I know there's not a home game.

The nationals are opening it rigly against the Cubs today.

220 first pitch.

Cade Cavali will be the day one starter.

It doesn't feel like opening day in our city.

Good morning, everybody.

Sweet 16 games tonight.

A smeltest later on in the show.

Ben Fox, who is Yahoo's sports betting analyst.

We've had a Ben on the show before.

He'll join us at 11 a.m.

Grant Paulson will jump on with us at 1135 to preview.

The Nats season, one in which the odds makers say

will be the second worst in baseball.

They're over under on win total.

64 and a half as an average number, only Colorado's worst.

And they're much worse at 56 and a half or 57 and a half.

The Rockies for a second consecutive year.

Predicted to be just horrendous.

But the Nats are right there and there's separation between them

as the projected second worst team in the league

and the teams that would be third, fourth,

and fifth worst teams in the league.

They're terrible entering this season.

New general manager, new on field skipper.

Will be interesting to watch to see whether or not this team can make some strides

towards perhaps a contending team not next year,

but maybe two, three years down the road.

But I want to talk about just opening day in this town.

I think most of you don't know this about me.

Maybe you recognize it when we're into playoffs and October baseball.

But I really love baseball.

I've always loved baseball.

Now, not growing up with baseball, not having a team here for 34 years,

which a lot of you experienced.

I mean, I'm just barely old enough to remember the senators.

I remember my father taking me to a 1971 game.

When Danny McLean made his debut as the senators pitcher,

the reason I remember that is not because of Danny McLean.

I just remember that when we came out after the game,

the car had been stolen.

True story.

The car had been stolen and that was a traumatic event for a young child.

But that was RFK in the early to mid-70s.

But anyway, after they left, I didn't, as many of my friends did,

I didn't adopt the Orioles as my team.

I just didn't.

I don't know why.

I think I just always had this sense that I wanted to wait until we had a team back

in Washington.

I'm glad I had a sense at a young age that there was a big difference between

Washington and Baltimore.

They're two totally separate cities, personality-wise,

and many others wise.

During the 70s, during the 80s, there were always pushes to bring baseball back.

RFK stadium on Sundays during football season, big banners.

Baseball in 1978, baseball in 1984 back in Washington.

There was that moment in which it looked like the San Diego Padres might move to Washington.

But it didn't happen.

I mean, 34 years without baseball.

I will tell you that I had a little big Tony in me as a kid.

And what I mean by that is big Tony's favorite teams are the Pittsburgh Steelers,

the Montreal Canadians, the San Antonio Spurs, Duke.

He's just always on front runners.

And in the mid-70s, the Oakland A's were my favorite team.

Vita Blue was my favorite player.

Catfish Hunter, Ken Holtzman, Reggie Jackson.

That's, you know, Sal Campanaris, Bert Campanaris,

Sal Bando, Mike North.

Those teams, I love those teams.

In part, because I was a kid and I love the different uniforms.

Like the Oakland A's were like the first, I bet this is true.

Although they were probably doing it in the ABA and maybe even in the AFL in the 60s.

But I think the Oakland Athletics or the Oakland days of the 1970s,

the great teams that they had, the multiple World Series titles that they won.

I think they were the first team to have more than just a home and in a way Jersey.

They had white, they had yellow, they had green.

They had three different jerseys.

I might even be missing one.

I mean, it took a while, Max, just so you know,

for, you know, multiple jerseys, alternate jerseys.

It was the same for every team.

You know, white at home, gray on the road, dark on the road.

And, you know, as a quick aside, last night, I was just kind of flipping around

channels and I happened to have landed briefly on the NBA network where the warriors were playing

a home game against the Nets.

Just pull up a highlight from last night's Warriors Nets game.

And tell me if it looks anything like a Golden State home game.

The floors completely different, the uniforms are completely different.

I actually, I know this is old man get off your lawn kind of a stuff, kind of stuff,

but I hate that there's at least no consistency with what the floors look like.

Like, if I turn on a game, I want to immediately identify, oh, that game's in Detroit.

That game's in Philly, that game's in Washington.

But everything changes.

It seems like every night.

I mean, it's hard to decipher quickly where the games being played, although you have it, you know,

with a scoreboard, you know, on the set.

The team typically on the bottom is the home team.

Where the team mentioned second, if it's horizontal, is the home team.

But anyway, back to baseball in the 70s, not necessarily.

But I loved baseball and I still think October baseball is as good as it gets in sports.

The tension of playoff baseball.

I absolutely love it.

When the Nets moved here, I was beside myself.

I remember those first few years listening to, you know, Charlie in particular, you know,

Dave eventually, but listening to the games on radio that were not televised.

For those first few years, home games all the time.

I mean, I was into it, you know, that one particular season,

when through the half waymark, they were 51 and 41 at the 81, 51 and 40.

I think it was.

That was actually exciting that they were, you know, much better than anticipated.

Their first year and look from 12 through 19, 2012 through 2019.

That was exciting.

I mean, to have playoff baseball in Washington, I remember doing the show with Tommy,

you know, from the stadium before game one against the Cardinals in 2012.

Kind of chilly, you know, in October and gray and cloudy and it just felt like

playoff baseball and I'm like, wow, this is a big deal.

Like this is what we've been watching some of us in October with other teams, you know,

over a long period of time and now we get this, you know, to ourselves.

And of course, there were scars built up rooting for this team during 2012 and before 2019.

You know, the painful playoff losses.

I mean, the game five loss to St. Louis that first year in 2012 with the big lead so painful.

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Testing season is right around the corner and this is when confidence really matters.

When kids take time to review key concepts and strengthen their skills before assessments,

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capable and confident.

IXL is an award-winning online learning platform that helps kids truly understand what they're learning.

Whether they're building math confidence, strengthening reading and writing skills,

or reviewing science concepts designed for students from pre-K through 12th grade,

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Studies show kids who use IXL score higher on tests, proven in all 50 states.

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Then the same thing happens against the cubs and the Dodgers, you know, at home.

Before finally making that world series run, which started with that incredible wild card win,

Soto's a thinning hit, you know, it was it was phenomenal.

It was great.

And it was like, wow, we're not turning into a baseball town because I don't think that's ever

going to happen as long as the football teams here.

And it's the number one story.

And I would also suggest I doubt it's ever going to happen as long as

the current ownership is in play.

It's just not an ownership that is top notch in terms of winning being the most important thing.

Making money or losing as little money is much more important than the former.

But some of those years I felt like opening day was exciting.

But man, we are now, you know, in this, this is going to be the seventh year.

Now, 20, you know, 2020, it was terrible luck what happened to our baseball team.

You win a world series and there is an amount of incremental revenue jump.

Goodwill, new fans that jump on for a first time champion.

This is something I remember during 2020.

I found this article that was written about the first time your city's sports team wins a title

and what it means to the franchise.

It's like this massive increase in revenue because of sponsorships, because of tickets sold,

because of everything that comes with being the defending champions.

And they didn't get a chance because of COVID to have a normal sort of, you know,

bounce that the world series in October of 2019 would have provided.

So there was some bad luck not to mention that our owners are in commercial real estate and

commercial real estate ended up taking a massive hit because of the pandemic.

So it was the worst possible situation following the game seven win in Houston.

You know, what would happen over the next couple of months.

So bad luck for sure.

But I mean, this team, you know, since that world series, you know,

take the 60 game, you know, 26 and 34 losing season during the pandemic pandemic out of it.

65 wins, 55 wins, 71 wins, 71 wins, 66 wins.

And this year projected to be fewer than 66 wins.

I've seen a lot of predictions of 100 plus losses, you know, they lost 107 in 2022.

And the bounce that they hope to get actually is completely deflated in my opinion.

I don't feel it. I think it's snuck up on us.

And then by, by the way, how the hell do you watch these games?

I mean, there's no more massing.

They're part of the MLB TV, you know, conglomerate now.

You know, if you don't, if you only have YouTube TV, I believe you've got to stream these games

at 1999 a month. I'll tell you what, for this team right now, couldn't be a worst time

to not be available easily in terms of the games being televised.

I know that I think Xfinity Comcast has a channel that those games will be on

same with a couple of other spots. But worst possible timing, not to have, you know,

it bundled into a cable package or available over the air.

I mean, 1999 a month for this team. I can't imagine it's going gangbusters.

Does it feel like opening day to you?

3012, 300, 980, 3012, 300, 980? This in many cities is a huge day, huge in Baltimore,

in Boston, in New York, in, you know, in, in Philly, in Chicago for two teams in Detroit,

in, you know, Houston now, in Seattle, in LA for sure, San Francisco. These are tried and true

traditional days on the sports calendar. I don't think it's become that for us. I think it had

a chance to, and I think it felt like that for a while. It may speak to just the nature

of what I think we've become as a sports town, which is after the football team,

it's bandwagon. It's, you got to be good to really draw a mass audience. And then it's fleeting.

You know, it's, it's jump on board for the biggest games at the end of the year as you're going

into the postseason or into the tournament or whatever it is. I mean, even, you know,

some of it, look, I think the caps fan base, obviously from a volume standpoint, it's far

from the largest, from a passionate, dedicated, loyal standpoint. It's probably number two in

this town, behind our football team. Now, again, the numbers won't support it being number two

in overall volume of fans. But in terms of how loyal they are, dedicated and non bandwagon-y they

are, they're probably second to the football team. Everything else got to win, got to win big to

really draw a big crowd. And the nats are so far from it. The wizards are so far from it. We

think, hopefully not, maybe next year. Does it feel like opening day in Washington, DC? I understand

it's not a home game, but it's still opening day, the first of 162 games. This is a big

effing deal in a lot of places. We don't have our home opener until Friday, April 3rd at home

against the defending champion LA Dodgers. By the way, I think I mentioned this the other day

when we had Mark Zuckerman on the show to kind of preview the season and talk about the

World Baseball Classic. And that is, it's a brutal start, schedule-wise to the season. They open

up against the NL Central favorites, then the Cubs, then they're on the road, then they're on the

road against the NL East favorites in Philadelphia. And then they're home against the NL West favorites

and the defending champion Dodgers. Say hello to your first nine games. I'm looking forward to

watching Cade Cavali pitch today. I'm looking forward to following James Woods' young emerging,

hopefully superstar kind of a career. I'm concerned about Dylan Cruz. He's down in AAA.

I think there's a reason to be concerned. Maybe it's too early. Does it feel like opening day

to you? 301230980. And if it doesn't, why not? We earned for baseball for so long. And now it's

been back here for 20 years. And it just seems like very much underwhelming. It does to me anyway.

301230980. It's a Kevin Chien show in the team 980 and the team 980.com.

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