Mike O'Connell

I started following baseball in 1989.

Seven years later my “hometown” team, the New York Yankees, won its first World Series in 18 years. It was one of the more glorious moments of my 14-year-old life.

In December of 2011 I moved from New York to Virginia, and started following the local baseball team a few months later. That would have been the 2012 Washington Nationals, a team that won the NL East but faltered in the playoffs. “Faltered in the playoffs” would become a theme over the next half dozen seasons, a period in which the Nats topped 95 wins four times but didn’t win a single playoff series.

Then this.

After a woeful 19-31 start, my hometown Nats went on a tear, finishing the season at 93-69, winning the NL Wild Card game, then three straight playoff rounds with no less than four wins in potential elimination games.

I guess I just have to follow a team for seven years and let things work out.

A part of me feels guilty for caring more about this Johnny-come-lately fandom of mine. Seven years hardly matches the quarter century I followed the Yankees. It’s official now, though: I care more about the Nats than I do the Yanks. Can’t help it. After all, I live here now. I don’t just reside here, I don’t just work here or play here; I live here. I read the small-time weekly newspapers. I volunteer with my local PTA. My son plays in a kiddie basketball league. I even recognize names in the local obituaries now. I’m part of this place.

It took seven years, but I really consider myself a Northern Virginia resident now. Thirty years from now I’ll tell the story: it was the Nationals’ winning the World Series that did it.

I can’t add anything more to how glorious this championship season has been. In short, it’s even better than I thought it would be.

After all, I got to be part of it.

My grandfather used to say that rooting for these three things helped him get through the Depression:

Notre Dame football;

Joe Louis;

and the New York Yankees.

Where’s Joe Louis when you need him?

That’s how it’s done.

It’s called stealing one on the road. Just the way we drew it up. (I saw we not because I’m in uniform or anything but because I feel as though I speak for the DMV.)

So this is destiny. This is history in the making. This is fate. Just like that.

And just like that, we’re three victories from a championship.

The last time a major league baseball team from Washington, D.C., played in the World Series was 1933. I must have been about six years old at the time. Wait, actually no, that was way the heck before I was even born! Yeah, seriously, it has been a while, but my hometown team, the Washington Nationals, are headed to the World Series. Last night’s victory over the St. Louis Cardinals completed a four-game sweep that featured some of the most dominant pitching this side of Walter Johnson. (Doing it old school with this thing called starting pitching.) As with the Caps fever that enveloped the DMV last year, the fair-weather fans ’round these parts have taken on the Nats like a long-lost family member.

A beautiful thing, no?

Yeah, baby.

This is how it’s done.

Pretty soon we’re gonna start calling this place Title Town. Caps last year, Mystics last night!, and the Nats, apparently, we’ll on their way. You don’t win a game like Wednesday’s Game Five without having destiny on your side.

And tonight we let the games begin!