It’s been 18 years since we last won a championship.  As a D.C. native that somehow still keeps loyalties with D.C. area sports teams it’s been tough these past 18 years.  D.C. is a transient city, and everyone who brings their loyalties always seems to have their home team win that freaking year! (This is perfectly fine… unless you’ve lived in D.C. your entire life but root for one of the more traditional bandwagon teams.  Maybe it really isn’t your fault because we’ve never had a decent home team to root for, but c’mon man).  This year as the New Orleans Saints won the Super Bowl I began to wonder about all the area sports teams and when they last won their championship and let me tell you, D.C. has been suffering.

Washington Nationals (MLB) – When D.C. had their baseball team leave twice… only for MLB to bring the Expos from Montreal to D.C. you know baseball here has sucked.  Expos didn’t win a World Series before it moved to D.C.  Nada, from 1969 – 2009, not a single World Series Championship – we even combined years from another city.  Does it help the fact that the previous two D.C. baseball teams (Texas Rangers/Minnesota Twins) are still in existence?  Well the Rangers never won a series either and the Twins won the World Series in 1987 and 1991 (still before the Redskins’ last Super Bowl) so that doesn’t really help our cause.  Also has there been any other city that had its sports team leave twice?  Twice we had the Senators and twice they left – was that the reason they decided to call them the Nationals this time around?  Also, when the club’s highlight moment during the past several years is getting the number #1 overall draft pick signed… that’s when you know you’ve hit rock bottom.

Verdict:  Nationals have been in D.C. only since 2005, but things aren’t looking good my friends… things are not looking good.

Talking Points:  If you ever come across a Nationals fan, talk about the recent signing of Stephen Strasburg (supposedly can throw above 100mph) and about the relatively new stadium.

Washington Wizards (NBA) – Guess the players wanted the Washington Bullets back.  A brief history review would note that there was an ABA team called the Washington Caps, and before them the Washington Capitols.  But I was born in 1983 so let’s just focus on the Bullets/Wizards.  When the Bullets moved from Baltimore to D.C. in 1973 they were a pretty stacked team with two future hall of famers (Elvin Hayes and Wes Unseld).  The team finally won the NBA championship in 1978… 5 years before I was born.  Do I recollect any glory Bullet/Wiz memories?  We had Jordan when he needed to stay retired.  We had Chris Webber, Rasheed Wallace, Ben Wallace, and Juan Howard… and we kept Juan Howard.  We drafted Kwame Brown when we could have had Pau Gasol.  We had to choose between Wizards, Dragons (what is this, an elementary school basketball program), Express (D.C. traffic anyone), Stallions, and Sea Dogs (WTH?!) to replace the Bullets (at least they were original and didn’t choose a name like… oh you know, the Caps).  Those are the memories I have.

At least the team this year made the news in some other way.  One and a half years after giving Gilbert “Agent Hibachi Zero” Arenas the worst contract in the NBA, the Wiz are second to last in the Eastern Conference.  If you give someone the money, you better be confident that he’s really that good – too bad my team gave a crazy man a 6 year $111M contract only for him to pull a gun on a fellow teammate.  I don’t know about you, but when I play pick-up basketball games at the local gym I wouldn’t want to play with someone who has a gun in the locker room and is sort of a nut case (could you imagine losing that game? Crap, would you even go back to the locker room and shower? I’d just leave in my sweaty clothes.)  The Wiz haven’t been all that bad, as they made the playoffs from ’04 to ’08 and winning a series in the ’04-’05 season – but when you lose to Cleveland three years in a row and can’t get out of the first round in three tries, you need to improve.  When the best thing going this year is the chance to draft John Wall out of Kentucky, you know your team sucks.  Hoping to lose is a sign that your fan base lost hope.  I hope the Wiz lose to better their chances at the #1 draft pick.

Verdict:  The Wiz had potential earlier this decade but shot it away, pun utterly intended.  Maybe it’s time to bring back the Bullets; at least it’s a theme our players are adhering to.

Talking points:  Gilbert Arenas – can the Wiz get out of his contract.  Talk about the recent trade with the Dallas Mavericks (Caron Butler, Brendan Haywood, DeShawn Stephenson for Josh Howard, Drew Gooden, Quinton Ross, and James Singleton).

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