Fred Bowen's "The Score" column,
December 20, 2002, Washington Post

Baseball, the Perfect Gift

I know what I want for Christmas this year. But I don't think I'll get it. This present is much too big to fit under my tree. And expensive? It's going to cost someone more than $250 million to make me happy this Christmas

I want a baseball team.

Thirty-three years after the Washington Senators left town, I want Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig to announce sometime during the new year that a real live Major League Baseball team will be moving back to D.C. or Northern Virginia. That would be the best present ever.

Could it happen? Well . . . maybe.

The way I figure it, the Montreal Expos will need a new home after the 2003 season. For most of the last 10 years, the Expos have been the most pitiful team in all of baseball.

Hardly anyone goes to their home games. The team has to trade away its best young players. The poor Expos don't even have a TV contract. They only have a radio contract. And they broadcast the games in French.

Things got so bad that last year Major League Baseball (MLB) bought the Montreal team. But the team still lost money. So the folks in MLB are scouting around for a new home for the Expos. Some city where the team can play in front of big crowds and make lots of money.

I think Washington, D.C., would be just the place. The Washington area has plenty of kids and grown-ups who love baseball. The fans in and around Washington love baseball so much that they have been willing to drive all the way to Baltimore to watch the Orioles play. They do that even when the Orioles stink, as they have for the last few years.

Washington has plenty of cool places to put a ballpark too. There is a proposal to put a new stadium near Union Station. Think of it, you could go to the game on the Metro and watch the Senators play in a new ballpark on a beautiful summer night with the lights of the U.S. Capitol in the background. I can almost smell the hot dogs.

Even though Washington would be the perfect place for a new team, MLB does not seem very eager to put a team here. The Expos are scheduled to play more than 20 "home" games in Puerto Rico next season. MLB may be scared to put a team in the District because a Washington team would make Orioles owner Peter Angelos very mad. Angelos thinks that if there is a team in Washington that fans around the city will not travel to Baltimore to watch his Orioles play.

Come on, Mr. Angelos, it's Christmas. Don't be such a Grinch. Washington hasn't had a baseball team for more than 30 years. Please tell Commissioner Selig and MLB that it's okay to put the Expos in Washington.

A team would make me, and lots of other Washington baseball fans, very happy for the holidays.