I want to expand on my earlier piece on my suspicion of the Lerner’s motivation in buying this team. To those who don’t want to read all of this, let me summarize, “Show Me The Money!!!”, Mr. Lerner.

Here are some other negatives in addition to those I mentioned before on why I think the Lerners are not serious about having a champion team.

1. One thing you want to do is to build a future fan base. Lerners’ response seems to be to always trade any player young kids, or old kids, can identify with, even if that player is not the world’s greatest. Case in point, Schneider, Patterson, Church, Soriano, etc.
The reason is that if a player becomes a favorite he will want more money. Besides by getting rid of fan favorites the Lerners can sell more baseball shirts with the names of the player on the back.

2. Immediately raise tickets prices astronomically when moving into a new stadium and emphasize swinging singles drinking at the bar in centerfield. Emphasizing families is a cost benefit loss because few will come at these ticket prices and won’t be drinking the outrageous liquor prices, a big profit margin item. Hey the drunks won’t care if there is a minor league team on the field. They will be gone by the 3rd inning.

3. Since buying land for parking lots is a waste of land development, provide no parking, even though most fans do not have Metro rail and must drive from Maryland and Virginia.
Also, most games start so that fans must compete with tourists and commuters to ride the already overcrowded Metro at pre-game time.

4, Even though a large majority of MLB players are Hispanic, ignore the huge Hispanic population in the DC area by not providing any Spanish radio coverage of the games. Hey Let soccer do that.

5. Sign no top free agent players and to keep hopes up tell the fans that the Plan will eventually provide a champion team. Where and when, 2015, in Las Vegas? A Tom Boswell column last month asked the question of the Nats, "What’s the backup Plan if the minor league plan doesn’t work?

6. Get into a fight with the DC government over the fact that plush executive offices were not completed in time, and therefore, refuse to pay the rent. Forget the fact that DC spent millions to build a stadium for you, unlike the new Yankee stadium built primarily with Steinbrenner money. Make this all very public, and add to the list as another reason to move the team or sell it in about 5 years.

7. Upset your best players (if you have any) by not signing them to long term contracts, and trade anybody who is making more than a million, and replace them with cheap has beens or cheap rookies. ( Rumor has it that Zimmerman refuses to participate in signing autographs, or doing team neighborhood promotional events because he is so upset over his contract..)

8. Minimize having your players getting out into the neighborhoods especially beyond DC city limits to promote the team. Hey there are a lot of fans in Loudon county or Fredericksburg, or Hagerstown (The heck with the Orioles).

9. Raise ticket prices even more next year and blame it on oil prices. This will surely kill fan attendance. After all of these things are designed with one in mind, and that is to get attendance down, way down. This will be the primary reason for selling the team, or moving it within 5 or o years. (Note that despite being one of the worst team, the Nats continue to draw 25000 plus to the games. You can’t stop dedicated Phillies and Met fans from filling the stadium.)

10. Develop a confusing TV channel system so nobody knows the Nats TV channels. Eventually they will give up trying to figure out where the heck game is on. Most folks have a 700 channel plus TV system in our area.

11. Where are the 6 pack ticket season tickets this year? Most fans can’t afford the 82 or 41 game season tickets when its hard for them to afford the daily ticket prices.

12. Has anybody ever seen a MLB team with so many people on the DL list at one time. Most of these players were supposed to be our starters. What is the reason for that?

Well, there’s my short list. I’m sure you can add to these. Yes, I love the new stadium. Should I consider myself lucky to have a MLB team in DC? Yes and No. DC has always had MLB teams until quick buck artists like Bob Short, and the fact, MLB is scared to death to have a team in the U.S. Congress town where with a stroke of the pen, baseball, and only baseball, could lose the exemption, from antitrust laws. Don’t want those Congressmen to think about that.

Enough already, show me the money!
Wxguy