OPINION - Editorial

OTHERS SAY: The Nationals not part of the Washington swamp

If it's a little bit of a stretch to say that Americans love to hate their nation's capital city, it is nonetheless fair to say that many Americans do despise the disdain that they feel emanating out from Washington, D.C.

And it's easy to see why. After all, any statistics that indicate the success of the Washington metro area come with a large asterisk. Yes, communities in and around the Beltway area have higher levels of educational attainment, income and amenities. But all of those successes are underwritten, at least in part, with the tax dollars that the rest of us pay.

So it might seem a little odd for us here in Dallas to offer sincere congratulations to the Washington Nationals for winning Major League Baseball's 2019 World Series in Game 7 in Houston. After all, didn't the Nats roll into Texas and take the Fall Classic away from a team of our own state, a team that had just won three in a row before dropping Game 6?

Yes. And all things being equal, we'd rather see a Texas team celebrating this time of year than see MLB's top prize carried back to Washington for the first time in 95 years. But there is a silver lining in the way the World Series played out that goes beyond the fact that the series took seven games, four of which were hard-fought battles in Houston.

In our view, the Nats' victory validates the decision to pull the baseball franchise out of Montreal, Canada, and in 2005 return major league ball to Washington. Bringing the national pastime back to the nation's capital revived a franchise, built a large fan base, and created a team that was more competitive than the Expos had recently been. In this case, the Nats came back from dropping 31 of their first 50 games to go on to win the big prize. In baseball, as in life, impressive turnarounds are possible, the past is not determinative of one's future, and, yes, even an upstart, come-from-behind team can succeed.

So we'll give the Washington Nationals the respect that they earned this year. We won't hold their Beltway digs against them, even as we would have rather seen Houston win this one and as we hold out hope that it won't be long before our Texas Rangers advance to and win the Fall Classic.

Editorial on 11/02/2019

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