Krauth takes time off from politics to write a nice column on Robbo’s beloved Nats today:

They are a baseball team. Not yet very good, mind you, but it matters not. When you live in a town with a great team, you go to see them win. When you live in a town with a team that is passing rapidly through mediocrity on its way to contention — the Nats have an amazing crop of upcoming young players — you go for the moments.

Yes, indeed.  Dr. K goes on to highly just a few such recent moments featuring Zimm, Espy and Ankiel, although there are a wealth of others from which to choose.  Go, Nats!!

Another place to which you go for the moments is little league softball (not that I am in any way suggesting a comparison here).  Last evening found ol’ Robbo out at the fields, helping out with a preseason skills camp.  I must say that in the five or six seasons in which I’ve been doing this, I’ve really come to love hanging around the park.  There’s the delightful, open-ended symmetry of the diamonds themselves; the familiar, time-honored instructions and exhortations; and what I can only call the overall “feel” of the ballpark and the people in it.  What I find the most gratifying part, perhaps, is running into girls I’ve coached in the past and actually having them pleased to see me again.  That proves to me that I must be doing something right.

And speaking further of such things, one of my jobs last evening was helping to field the batting-practice station.  In this, I had several “What Would Danny Espinosa Do?” moments of my own, including having to deal with a line drive that the middle gel pasted close enough to me that I could not ignore it without dishonor.   For a complete novice, that gel has a mighty quick stick – on the way home she confided that at the plate she was asking herself what Ryan Zimmerman would do.  Alas, I didn’t come up with the brilliant Espy snag, but at least I managed to knock it down, which at my age and condition, is good enough.