Monday was a lovely night for baseball in Hagerstown, Md.: clear skies and 76 degrees for three innings of Stephen Strasburg. That might explain how a team in the Class A South Atlantic League drew a crowd of 1,652 fans. But this was Stephen Strasburg! Of course 1,652 people would come to watch him. And yet, what makes Strasburg's minor league stints even more remarkable is that this sort of fuss almost never happens.
After rooting vigorously for A.J. Burnett to fail Saturday so that he might be removed from the rotation for the Greater Yankee Good, I watched it happen in technicolor. The villain of my imagination fared even worse than I could have hoped — 1 2/3 innings, five hits, three walks, two wild pitches, seven earned runs. The Yankees persisted, but the 7-0 deficit was far too much to overcome.
It's August in Washington, D.C., which typically means two things: It is stink-hot and the Redskins have not yet had a chance to underperform. This year, just like all the others, it's stifling outside — I stink — and the Redskins haven't named a starter at QB. ('Tho, you know, what if Sexy Rexy Grossman can channel his 2006 self … and Ryan Torain can stay healthy all season … and … oh, goddammit, I'm doing it again.)
But Sunday delivered an altogether atypical experience for a D.C. sports fan — particularly one who roots for the local professional baseball team — and it had nothing to do with Jayson Werth actually getting a big hit in a big moment. No, what made Sunday special was an awesome 1⅔ innings in a baseball game in Hagerstown, Md.
