State of the Union: Why Blog about the Nats?

As you probably noticed by reading the About area, The New Colossus Blog is dedicated to covering the Washington Nationals, DC's (somewhat) new baseball team. Covering the Nats has become something of a cottage industry among bloggers these days. Last year, Sports Illustrated rated the Nats' blogosphere as one of the best among major league teams, and currently, at any one time, there are approximately 16 or so active (at least one post every two weeks) Nats blogs published by fans of the teams, plus another two blogs that deal with issues directly pertaining to the Nats and another two that are run by DC's two main newspapers. I don't claim to be anything resembling an expert, but that's a lot of blogs.

With all that coverage of the team, one is left with two notable impressions. First, it's going to be difficult for new blogs (like this one) to find unique ways of covering the team (besides everyone providing his or her own opinions). This means that I've got my work cut out for me if I want to avoid the moniker, "Just another Nationals blog," or if I want to avoid hearing Dusty Baker complain about me clogging up the blogosphere. If I fail to be sufficiently interesting or insightful, I'm almost certainly going to pull the plug on this venture and just comment on other blogs.

Second, I also find it intriguing that Nats blogs seem to be compensating for the dearth of national media coverage on the Nationals. As a non-playoff contender in the National League with a soft-spoken, non-controversial manager and an image-conscious front office, the Nats don't get much love from the national news media because they lack anything truly newsworthy for such publications. I could do a search for stories involving the Nationals in publication such as Sports Illustrated or conduct a study of relative airtime devoted to stories involving the Nats on mainstream television sources, but I'm lazy so I won't. Instead, I'm just going to claim that the Nats don't get much national press exposure, especially not relative to the Yankees-Red Sox WWIII storylines in recent years. If you have facts or statistics to disprove me, I'd love to see them and will eat crow, but I've got a feeling I'm not going out on a limb here. Regardless, the fans seem to be taking up the slack in a big way. In many instances, these blogs even generate their own content. A few blogs produce some interesting statistical analysis, such as Capitol Punishment and The Nationals Review, while others produce excellent photographic and human interest content. JDLand's review of Nationals Park construction is simply superb, although I suppose she will be moving on to other aspects of development now that the park is nearly complete. Nats320 provides some of the best human interest reporting and interviews anywhere in the Nats blogosphere and it's actually some of the best non-game coverage I've seen for any sports team on the 'net. Nationals Inquisition, meanwhile, has very good photographic coverage of Nationals competition.


So, given all the great Nats blogs already out there, why am I doing this? I have a few reasons.

First, most of the coverage seems to be divided between poles. Casual and human interest vs. statistical analysis. Highly critical evaluation vs. friendly fan love. Overly broad coverage vs. highly specialized posts. There's not a lot of middle ground between the blogs and there especially seems to be a lack of a more nuanced slant on the team, its management and players. This blog will try to bridge the gap between these perspectives so that casual and dedicated fans can both feel comfortable.


Second, I'm going to be blogging from a relatively unique perspective. I'm new to both baseball and the Nationals. Without going into too many details about myself, I'm graduating senior at college who's from the DC area. Prior to entering college, I hated organized sports and had absolutely no use for any games that were not either academic or electronic in nature. That changed when I ended up with a hardcore Red Sox fan as my freshman roommate, lived in Boston for their World Series victory in 2004 (and now 2007) and got incredibly homesick. If I had been smart, I would have adopted the Red Sox as my home team and joined the Nation. (Yes, I think Steinbrenner, tactless as he was, was pretty accurate when he called Red Sox Nation a creation of ESPN, but I digress.) But I was homesick and the closest thing I had to a home team (I'm from Virginia) was the new Washington Nationals who were just setting up in DC. For most of 2005, I ignored the team except for occasionally following the ownership hunt. In '06, I followed a little more closely, but again, mostly watched the ownership hunt unfold. Then last year, the Nationals bug finally bit me and I started following the club more closely, culminating in my present state of near-daily fixation with DC's team.

My whole point is that I wasn't there in the beginning. I'm not a season ticket holder (that would be kind of stupid for an out of state college student). I was not one of the screaming mass of fans clamoring for a team in DC. I wasn't there in the inaugural season, or there for Zimmerman's breakout as a start 3b, or for Soriano's monster season. I haven't been in the stands cheering for Teddy to win, or singing Sweet Caroline. I wish I'd had a few chances to do so, and I wish I had followed the Nats from the beginning, but I can't claim to. That changes your perspective somewhat. I'm here from right now, and my perspective will be from that of a newer Nats fan beginning with the opening of the new park in DC. I think this voice is important, especially in a blogosphere dominated by the old hands who have been around since the beginning--fans who are either cynical (perhaps rightly so) or nostalgic (also perhaps rightly so). I'll do my best to be neither and to focus on the here and now of the Nationals.

Even though I'm fixating on this middle stance though, I'm not planning on dividing the difference between the perspectives. Split the difference centrism, regardless of topic, doesn't make much sense. Instead, I may side with one pole or another, or spout off my own steaming hunk of crap, but I want to make it accessible and friendly to everyone.

Here's hoping it works.