Um. So. One loss makes the team a loser? That seems like an excuse to just complain about the stadium to me.

1) The showing was not that bad. The Nationals had 13 hits to Philadelphia's 14. There were a lot of other bright spots in the game.

2) Seeing as how the owners of the other MLB teams hold the purse strings, there will not be a championship team until it has it's own owner. There is no incentive for the current "owner" to put a successful squad on the field. Wait for judgement in a few years when someone that cares is running the team.

The Nats are losers. They're the former Expos and for whatever reasons (including those you cite), they suck and will continue to suck for a while. The main point is that adding another crummy team to an already full roster for an as-yet-unknown cost is not going to make life better for anybody around here. After years of promises from Mayor Williams and others, the moment is at hand and it's more than a little underwhelming.

So the Red Sox must suck terribly since they lost 9-2.

I am a DC resident and I'm ecstatic about finally having a baseball team. I grew up in Northern VA and hated not having a home team. Will it take some time before they're winners? Yes. Do I care? No. The Redskins are the highest profit team and the longest sell-out crowd in the NFL. DC loves them. It doesn't matter that they lose. We have a championship team in DC and no one cares about them. Winning isn't everything.

The main point is that adding another crummy team to an already full roster for an as-yet-unknown cost is not going to make life better for anybody around here.

Ah, but you're forgetting that we've recently had one of these positions open up thanks to the NHL. Balance is maintained.

And anyway, who cares whether a baseball team wins or loses? There are so goddamn many games, who can keep track? No, the point of a baseball team is to give Washingtonians an excuse to skip work, sit in the sun and consume beer and hot dogs. I suppose functioning schools would be nice, but if we can't have that then at least we can gorge and bask.

Winning isn't everything.

The fact that some blogger (or mayor or corporate executive or whomever) feels great about having a home team is.

The fact that they will be another embarassingly bad team (mark my words, come back here in October) doesn't really help either.

Nats schmats. Its nice to have baseball so close to my house, but I really don't care. Go O's!

I don't think they're going to do well. I will be amazed if they go .500. I don't think that's all that important, though.

i know they're still losers, but i had to point out that the wizards are in 4th place in the east, with a winning record...