Denny McLain, Moderator

Oh, glory be, the funk's on me. This atomic dog's going to give up the funk... Gosh, I love Parliament.

Oh, are we back on? Thank you, Mr. Wonk, for taking me back to the glory days of my career, such as they were. Playing most of my career in Detroit, I was more of a Motown man, but I was exposed to P-Funk when I was traded to the Senators, and George Clinton's beats really got me shaking my Irish backside. Those were the days, my friends.

I'd like to thank both of you for a spirited but mostly clean debate. You've both made your cases well, as I'm sure our audience will agree.

It is now time for closing statements. BallWonk, representing the Grays, will go first. Please be reminded, fans and friends and odds and ends, that voting will continue for a week after the closing statements. Pretend you're a dead person in Chicago and vote early and often! My friend Fat Tony hails from Chicago, so I'm sure he has some experience with... Why are you shaking your head like that? Did I say something -- Oh. Um, never mind.

Mr. BallWonk, the floor is yours.

BallWonk, Speaking for the Grays

Folks who support the Senators often say to me, "BallWonk, I understand the desire to remember the Negro Leagues, but Senators is part of Washington's baseball heritage."

Sure, in about the same way that Waterloo is part of France's military heritage, or that Mondale/Ferraro is part of the Democratic Party's political heritage.

The Senators are not the beginning and end of our baseball heritage. The Grays, too, are part of that heritage. So let's see what kind of legacy each name offers us.

I give you every pennant and championship trophy the Senators won in seven decades of trying:

Three pennants, one championship, none since 1933

And here is every pennant and championship trophy the Grays won in only
10 years of Washington baseball:

Seven pennants, three championships, all since 1940

Case closed.

Counting league titles, the Grays win 7-3. Counting championships, the Grays win 3-1. Counting World Series success, the Grays win with a .600 record (3-2) versus .333 (1-2) for the Senators. All this despite the Senators having 60 extra years to pad their numbers.

The Senators took 70 whole years to rack up their whopping one championship. Heck, even the Soviet Union able to defeat Nazi Germany, conquer Eastern Europe, and put the first man in orbit in its 70 years. The only group that has ever had as little to show for 70 years of effort was Mexico's old ruling PRI party. Try that on for a motto: "Washington Senators: Less Competent Than Communism, Slightly Better Than Mexico."

Yeah, that's inspiring. What a legacy. What a heritage.

Look at those pennants and trophies again. The Grays moved to Washington and won year in, year out, for a decade. The Senators spent seven decades locked in the cellar, with only three pennants to show for it, and none since 1933.

Look at those pennants and trophies and tell me which name represents success and which represents failure. Tell me which heritage you want to honor. If you prefer losing to winning, that's your right, and if so then Senators is your name.

But if you want a name that connects with a heritage of championship baseball in Washington, then this isn't even close. Grays is not the better choice. It is not the superior choice. Grays is the only choice.

Denny McLain

Thank you, Mr. Wonk. Mr. Fred, your closing argument?

Mediocre Fred, Speaking for the Senators

Thank you, Denny. And thank you, BallWonk, for agreeing to participate in this debate. And thank you to all of you who have come to the Armory to see us live and all those who tuned in at home. I'd like to thank the Academy and my parents and -

Denny McLain

Mr. Fred, if you don't mind...

Mediocre Fred

Sorry, got a little carried away there.

On September 29, the day when it was announced that our long 33-year odyssey without baseball was over, the day when our long-deferred dream came true at last, I attended a celebration with some friends. They were friends to me even though I'd never met most of them, because we shared the common bond of baseball. We repaired to a local bar and knocked back a few (perhaps more than a few) in honor of our team.

We were a diverse group. We were old enough to remember the original Senators, and young enough to have grown up without a home team at all. We were lawters and office workers and delivery drivers. We were from Maryland, Virginia and Washington. We were natives and transplants. We were of a rainbow of races and ethnicities. And we had one thing in common -- we all loved baseball, and we all wanted the name Senators for our team.

Throughout this debate, my opponent has tried to insuinuate that the name Senators is a relic, a name whose appeal is limited to old white guys who are fixated on the failures of the past. Unfortunately, his argument fails the reality test. The reality is that, now as ever, the people want the name we've always known and loved.

No Senators fans left? Tell that to my father, who grew up watching the home team on TV with his grandfather. Tell that to my mother, who went to Griffith Stadium and later DC Stadium/RFK with her father and was a member of the Knothole Gang. Tell that to the fans on the Ballpark Guys message board, the true believers who will form the hard core of support in our town, who overwhelmingly favor Senators for the team's name. Tell that to the Washingtonians, black and white and Hispanic and Asian and everything else, who routinely deliver wide margins of support to Senators in the team-naming polls.

No great Senators other than Walter Johnson? Surely you didn't mean to so denigrate Goose Goslin, Sam Rice, Bucky Harris, Joe Judge, Joe Cronin, Heinie Manush, Early Wynn, Rick Ferrell, Harmon Killebrew, Cecil Travis, Chuck Hinton, Roy Sievers, Frank Howard, and other great and beloved Senators. If you need help with the names, take a look around the Ring of Honor at RFK on Opening Day. There you'll find all those names and more.

And, just in case you might be swayed by more pictures of pretty female senators, I offer you Alaska's Lisa Murkowski:

Really, this is a simple question. We want a name that represents our city, a name that is truly Washington's. And on this score, there is no contest. Grays is the name of a team that played some of its games here for a decade. Senators is the name of a team that played all of its games here for 70 years. Which name is truly Washington's? Whose team is this, Washington's or Pittsburgh's?

Our city, our team

Not our city

Do the Grays have more of a legacy of success than our Senators? Certanly. But if we're going to start throwing away our storied history to honor a short-timer who happened to win a lot, that would make us something akin to -- forgive the rough language, but it must be said -- Yankee fans.

I don't doubt that my opponent, and other Grays supporters, mean well in their suggestion. I laud their call for inclusion. I believe the new team needs to be a team for all Washington.

But I also believe that Washington is a city that is grounded in history. You need look no further than the monuments and national icons that surround us for proof. We respect and honor tradition here. And Senators is our tradition, our heritage. Are we going to let a bunch of guilty white people import a name from out of town and saddle us with a dull, lifeless moniker to ease their embarrassment over the sins of the past?

No, we will not. Instead, we will adopt the name that is -- and has always been -- the people's choice. We will unite around the name that we love, the name that represents Washington, the name that represents our past and will take us forward into the future: Senators.

Let me close with an anecdote. One of our less-famous ballplayers here in Washington was a first baseman by the name of Zeke Bonura. Zeke was a good-hit, no-field sort who played here for a couple seasons before being dealt to the Giants in 1939. The Giants were a presumed contender that year, while the Senators were projected to struggle, and yet Zeke seemed unhappy about the trade. He didn't want to leave. So a puzzled reporter asked him why he didn't seem happy about going to New York. And Zeke, in a turn of phrase that Shakespeare himself might envy, replied: "Now I won't be able to sign my letters 'Senator Henry J. Bonura, Democrat, Louisiana.'"

I ask you, friends: Who are we to argue with the wisdom of Zeke Bonura?

Thank you, God bless you and good night.

Denny McLain

Thank you. That concludes the Senators-Grays Name Debate of 2004. Please remember to cast your ballots between now and next Tuesday on either the Mediocre Fred or BallWonk site.

And, finally, if I could speak to the youth of America for a moment. Kids, here's a message from your Uncle Denny. Don't do drugs. Stay in school. Don't gamble. Don't hang around mobsters. In short, if I've done it, you probably shouldn't try it.

Drive safely, everyone. Good night.

Posted by: Fred at 02:06 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 1622 words, total size 10 kb.

Denny McLain, Moderator

Hmmm hmmmm hmm hmmm hmmm, 'cause at least I know I'm free, and I'll grandly stand tough, and fight for -

Oh, we're back? Sorry. I guess I got swept up in the moment there, what with Mr. Fred showing the flag and all. Gosh I love the flag. These colors don't run, baby.

Right. Welcome to the final day of arguments in the great Grays vs. Senators debate. Mr. BallWonk will now make his final rebuttal, and tomorrow both he and Mr. Fred will make their closing statements. Remember, this debate is being simulcast live at BallWonk's blog, as is the balloting. Polls will remain open here and at the other blog for a week following Monday's closing statements. Please vote now, and come back and vote often, up to once per day.

Warden Norton is getting impatient, so I'm going to have to ask you to be quick, here, Mr. BallWonk.

BallWonk, Speaking for the Grays

I'll do my best, Denny.

I applaud my opponent, Mr. Fred, for reminding us of the few great Senators of the past. (And I note that only one of them actually played baseball, which tells you everything you need to know about Senators history.) As a pragmatist, I do not want my baseball team to be sullied by association with the Senate, which contains after all the 100 least popular people in America. Polls regularly show that U.S. Senators, as a group, are less trusted and popular than a frat house full of used-car dealers, personal-injury lawyers, and New Jersey strippers.

But they do not deserve this public scorn, at least not all of them. Why, BallWonk himself once worked in a Senate office, and he found his employer and most other Senators to be among the most admirable people he has ever met. Still, the public clearly does not agree, and no matter how much we wish otherwise, no matter how many photos we show of John McCain or Ben Nighthorse Campbell or Olymia Snowe, the people will continue to associate Senators with cynicism, dishonesty, and opportunism.

Why, that sounds like the New York Mets.

Is that how we want people to think of our team, too? I hope not.

And what of the question of representation? Washington itself is not represented in the Senate. It makes no more sense to call a team in DC
the Senators than to call it the King George IIIs. The lack of democracy - and, to be honest, looking at Marion Barry, sometimes the presence of democracy - in DC is bad enough. Why rub salt in the wound by imposing recreation without representation?

They don't call Washington "Chocolate City" for nothing, and it's not on account of a sweet tooth. Washington has been a center of black culture in America for generations. Today it is home to perhaps the largest and most vibrant black middle class of any American city, and the local black community has never rallied behind any of our local sports teams.

When we name our team the Grays, we will be able to speed up that day when all of Washington's residents, black fans and white fans, Virginians and Marylanders, Republicans and Democrats, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old baseball spiritual, "Take me out to the ball game! Take me out with the crowd! Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack, I don't care if I never get back!"

If we want to return to the days of the Senators, when Washington baseball struggled to outdraw a double-A team, and in fact drew fewer fans than the 2004 Expos - which pretty much puts the lie to any claim that there even are true Senators fans - then by all means, keep the Senators name. Our team can do just fine with the small-market revenue that comes from playing before an empty ballpark, right? After all, who needs a popular, winning team when we can have our very own facsimile of the Devil Rays.

See, as Parliament's George Clinton would say, Senators just doesn't represent. It doesn't represent a city with no Senators of its own. The nearly all-white Senate doesn't represent the most thriving black metropolis in the nation. The slow-to-integrate and always black-unfriendly Senators teams of old don't represent our tolerant and inclusive town. And the monumental incompetence of the Senators, whose last pennant came 70 years ago next season, doesn't represent the kind of popular, winning franchise we all hope to have.

This really is about representation. The Senators name represents division, segregation, bigotry, failure, disappointment, betrayal, and disenfranchisement. It represents an 80-year championship drought and 70 years since the last pennant. Even the lowly Chicago Cubs have won the pennant since the last time the Senators hoisted the flag. Senators represents exactly what our team must not be.

Grays, however, represents a team that moved to Washington to become
champions. Grays represents popularity, victory, pennants, and championships. Grays represents triumph over racial divisions and divisional rivals. The Grays were everything we want our team to be.

Posted by: Fred at 08:43 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 862 words, total size 5 kb.

Denny McLain

Thank you, Mr. Wonk, for those remarks. We now move on to Mediocre Fred's final day of argument. He will be followed by BallWonk's rebuttal tomorrow, and closing arguments on Monday.

A quick reminder to our audience: Please register your vote in the poll either here or at BallWonk's blog. Voting will continue throughout the debate and for 10 days thereafter. I know there has been some controversy about electronic voting, and I want to assure you that our system is completely secure, and that all results will be reviewed and certified by the presitigious Boston firm Dewey, Cheatham and Howe. I would also like to assure you that the so-called quote from our poll designer that he would "do everything he could to deliver Ohio for the Grays" is entirely false.

I would like to remind both debaters to keep things concise, as I am required to remain awake throughout this debate and the warden wants me back ASAP. I would also like to encourage both candidates to submit more pictures of attractive women. Mr. Fred, your picture of Mary Landrieu was quite an eye-opener. She's much easier to look at than Orrin Hatch of, for that matter, either of you. Mr. Wonk, your picture of Linda Gray brought back many warm, sweet memories. And I'd never heard of Macy Gray before you brought her up, but my my my... she does things to me I didn't imagine were still possible at my age.

So, by all means, produce any and all possible pictures of attractive women in service of your respective arguments. And please feel free to leave a copy of said pictures over here at my desk. It gets lonely in prison, you know, and I-

Eric, Production Flunky

Uh, Mr. McLain - the debate - we're on the air -

Denny McLain

Ah, yes, yes, forgive me. Mr. Fred, you have the floor. Proceed.

Mediocre Fred, Speaking for the Senators

Thank you, Mr. McLain. I have some pictures of Senator Landrieu that I think you'll really appreciate. I'll leave them with you after the debate is over.

I noticed my opponent took a stab at mind-reading in his remarks when he decided that I was "steamed" based on my expression. He was as wrong about this as he is about most other things. The only thing steamed about me is the shrimp I'm going to have with my beer after the debate. Instead, I was amused at my opponent's apparent inability to give a straight answer about anything.

We're embracing 19th-century baseball teams now, sir? The Providence Grays? The Civil War? And my opponent accuses me of being a senile old man wedded to the past! It's quite telling that my opponent has to reach back into the 19th century to find support for his choice. If we're going to be reviving 19th-century team names now, how about the Quicksteps? Or the Stogies? Or the Dark Blues? Or the Cream Citys? All these are examples of actual team names from the 19th century. As you can see, team naming was an ill-defined art back then. Not a mistake we need to repeat.

And is it any wonder that, namewise, Grays is a relic of an era long dead? Let us look at the dictionary definition of "gray," and it will be immediately clear why there's been no clamor for the name up until now:

gray

1. Of or relating to an achromatic color of any lightness between the extremes of black and white.
2. a. Dull or dark: a gray, rainy afternoon.
b. Lacking in cheer; gloomy: a gray mood.

Is that the sort of association we want? Dull and dark? Gloomy? There's a reason that the seminal novel about faceless corporation men was titled The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit. There's a reason ELO's upbeat hit wasn't called "Mr. Gray Sky." There's a reason that everyone's favorite depressive storybook character, Eeyore, is gray.

Good day for a ballgame? Looks like rain to me...

My opponent produced an impressive array of pictures of military planes and ships, all painted gray, as well as a picture of a gray wolf, suggesting that they prove that gray is a color of strength and victory. Oh, please. Why do you think that our ships and planes, and for that matter the wolves, are gray? Is it because gray is such a powerful and strong color that instantly strikes fear into the hearts of the enemy? Of course not. They're gray because it blends in better and is harder to see when it's coming at you through the air, through the sea or through a snow-covered forest.

You know what else is gray? Squirrels. Haven't we seen enough of those in Washington already?

Don't mess with me, or I'll... attack your bird feeder and run away!

Is that what we want? Do we want a team that tries to hide itself until the last possible moment? Do we want a team that blends in with our surroundings? No! We want a team that announces itself with confidence. We want a team that comes in, with colors blazing. We want the old red-white-and-blue!

How can a team based in our nation's capital seriously consider any other colors? If we really want to be America's Team, as my opponent suggests, how can we have any other than America's colors? Why would we consider tossing aside what Gregg Easterbrook calls "the most successful color scheme in world history"? Blue and gray? Did we suddenly become the capital of CPA-land while I wasn't paying attention?

See any gray in there? Me either.

I can't believe there's any serious debate about this.

Of course, in addition to being America's Team, we want to be Washington's Team. We want a name that will inspire instant identification and pride among our citizens. And on that score, Senators is unparalleled. It's a name with deep roots both in our city and with this sport.

Some critics of the Senators name have argued that D.C. has no Senators. I'd beg to differ. We certainly do. 100 of them, in fact. And we keep them in one of our city's most distinctive and memorable buildings (and one that will be quite visible from the new park):

Just up the left-field line...

And besides, if we want a platform to make Washington's lack of voting rights clear, what better way to dramatize our plight? If we name the team "Senators," perhaps some day, in the midst of a 30-minute rambling digression about the way Hank Aaron wore his socks, Tim McCarver will stop and say, "Hey, you know, DC actually doesn't have any Senators." He's not going to say, "Hey you know, they didn't name this team 'Senators' because DC doesn't have any." Something for Mark Plotkin and Mayor Williams to think about.

But a team name isn't primarily a platform for airing grievances. We want a name we can be proud of. And "Senators" is a name to be proud of. Perhaps you've read the book Profiles in Courage. The book tells the story of eight Senators who risked their careers, their well-being, even their lives to stand up for the best interests of the country. That book showed us all just what an honorable and noble enterprise being a Senator can be.

For that matter, that book's author is a pretty famous face, and one with which our team could proudly identify:

Ask not what your ballclub can do for you; ask what you can do for your ballclub

Or how about Harry Truman, the plain-spoken people's champion? He was a Senator.

The Commissioner's Trophy stops here

So is the man many consider to by Truman's modern-day double, a man never afraid to speak his mind, John McCain.

Riding the Straight Talk Express to the top of the NL East

And let's not forget the greatest Senator of them all, a gentleman's gentleman, a giant among men, Walter Johnson:

So great they named a high school after him

This is our history, Washington. These are some of our brightest lights. And for those fence-sitters out there (and for the benefit of our moderator), I offer you this picture Arkansas Senator Blanche Lambert Lincoln:

As pretty as a Brad Wilkerson double to left

Are we to seriously consider tossing aside these examples of strength, heroism, and greatness -- these American icons -- in favor of a carpetbagging name that's so dull, so nondescript, so... gray?

I think not. I believe the people of Washington want our heroes, our heritage. They want the name they've always wanted. They want Senators.

Posted by: Fred at 12:53 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 1452 words, total size 10 kb.

Denny McLain
Thank you, Mr. Fred, for those remarks.

We now turn to the second of three statements from BallWonk, representing the Grays.

Let me take a moment to remind everyone to vote early and often (but not more than once a day) in the name poll on the sidebar both here and at BallWonk's blog. Voting will continue for another 10 days before a winner is certified.

Mr. BallWonk, you have the floor.

BallWonk, Speaking for the Grays

I would like to apologize to my esteemed - or, to judge by the way he's looking at me, thoroughly steamed - colleague, Mr. Fred, for implying that his Senatorial delusions stem from any temporary source, such as a superabundance of Natty Boh. Clearly, his disconnection with reality is of a more permanent nature, more senility than stupor.

What has the failure of the Kansas City Royals' 1955 marketing campaign got to do with anything? Nothing. Nothing at all. Yes, honoring the Negro Leagues is a part of the drive to name our new team the Grays. But it is not the only part, and to BallWonk not even the most important part.

The most important thing about the Grays name is that it's a winner. The Grays were the single most talented and successful professional team to play in Washington. In any sport. Ever.

That's what the Grays name is all about.

The fact that Grays would also give Major League Baseball a Negro League homage in both the American and National Leagues, well, that's gravy; delicious gravy, but even without that gravy we've got thick, juicy slices of pennant-winning pot roast, consecutive-championship potatoes, and steamed Hall of Fame carrots on our plate. At least if we go for the Grays.

Senators, on the other hand, is serving up a thin broth of last-place soup with a side order of stale talent.

Compared to the Senators, a can of Natty Boh starts to sound positively appetizing.

This debate isn't only about the Homestead Grays.

Why, the Brooklyn Dodgers - the team that shattered the color barrier with Jackie Roosevelt Robinson in 1947 - were known as the Grays from 1885-87, before Washington even had a team called the Senators. Our home opener will take place on the anniversary of Jackie Robinson's big-league debut, and Robinson played for Brooklyn's farm club in Montreal before joining the majors. If the Robinson-Montreal-Grays-Washington connection is not a sign from the baseball gods, I don't know what is.

The early National League also featured the Louisville Grays, from 1876 to 1877, the Milwaukee Grays in 1878, and the Providence Grays, from 1878 to 1885.

Let me tell you a little about the Providence Grays. In their eight seasons, the Grays featured three future Hall of Famers: John Montgomery Ward, Charley Radbourn, and Jim O'Rourke. In 1882, Grays righty Ward set a record that still stands by throwing an 18-inning complete-game shutout. The Grays won two pennants and the first World Series. In that inaugural interleague championship, the Grays swept the New York Mets behind Radbourn, who pitched three consecutive complete-game wins.

Gosh, should we pick Grays, a team name associated with sweeping the Mets in the playoffs, or Senators, a team name associated with finishing in last place and relocating to other cities? Yeah, that's a tough one. Not.

And in his pictoral exhibit of less-than-thrilling grayness, my opponent hides behind distortions and ignores the more glamorous and exciting connotations of Grays. With Senators, you get Strom Thurmond and Ted Kennedy. But Grays looks more like this:

Linda Gray, aka Sue Ellen Ewing on Dallas

David Gray, lighting up the charts in Britain and America

Macy Gray, thrilling chanteuse

Zane Grey practically invented the Western

Confederate gray, for our fans in Virginia

Say, speaking of the Civil War, the Grays colors would be blue and gray, healing at long last the historical scars of the War of the Rebellion. Our team could bring together rebel Virginians and loyal Marylanders, the Sons of the Confederacy, the great-grandchildren of slaves, and the descendants of Union soldiers, to root for one team. America's team. Isn't it time to finish Lincoln's work and bind up at long last the nation's wounds?

Ferocious, all-American gray wolves

Battleships, so exciting they named a shade of gray after them

Say, speaking of battleships, you know what else is gray? Fighter jets. You know, the sleek, lethal aircraft with which America rules the world's skies and wages the war against terror. Mr. Fred seems to believe that the heroes who defend the high frontier and their jets are too boring. BallWonk begs to differ.

F-15 Eagle, the powerful S. Brad Wilkerson of the sky

F-16 Falcon, swift and nimble, the Jose Vidro of the air

F-18 Hornet, fierce and adaptable like Livan Hernandez

F-22 Raptor, like Mike Hinckley a future star

Now that's what I'm talking about. Gray boring? Tell that to the millions of fans of Linda Gray on Dallas, or Macy Gray on the radio, or to anyone who has thrilled to the sight of a gray wolf on the prowl, or a warship cruising in to port, or the thundering roar of a fighter jet on patrol.

Boring? Nay. Gray is a color of victory. Victory on the field, at sea, and in the sky. Gray is the winning hue, whether it's beating the Mets for the pennant, Kansas City for the championship, or the terrorists and tyrants of Asia.

If we want our team to stand on a tradition of winning, to start with a legacy of success, to play with the values that make America great, then we have only one choice in this debate: the Washington Grays.

Posted by: Fred at 12:41 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 960 words, total size 7 kb.

Denny McLain, Moderator

Thank you, Mr. BallWonk. We will now turn to Mediocre Fred's second statement. A quick reminder to everyone: Be sure to vote early and often (but not more than once a day) in the name poll on the sidebar both here and at BallWonk's blog.

In case you were wondering, that organ music you heard during the intermission was played by yours truly. I have been a virtuoso with the organ since childhood, and in fact I considered becoming a profesisonal organist before I chose baseball. Had I gone that route, I might not have met the "friends" I met while playing baseball, and I might be a free man today. On the other hand, I would not have gotten to know my friend Fat Tony. And I've gotten to know him very well. Very well indeed. But enough about me.

Since the tensions in our contest are beginning to run high, I'd like to remind both of our debaters that express physical threats are prohibited. Also, any weapons can and will be confiscated by the security staff. Bear that in mind as you continue.

Mr. Fred, the floor is yours. Please proceed.

Mediocre Fred, Speaking for the Senators

Thank you, Mr. McLain. Before we proceed, as today is Veteran's Day I'd like to observe a moment of silence in honor of all those who have served our country. Thank you.

Well, I must say I'm not quite sure what to make of my opponent's statements. "All sound and fury, signifying nothing" might be a fair summation. But what really disturbs me is that my opponent is once again showing a laissez-faire attitude toward the facts.

"When I choose a word," Humpty Dumpty once said, "it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less." That seems to be my opponent's attitude toward the words and numbers he uses. He seems to have a private standard of "truth" and "facthood" in which all his logically precarious arguments somehow hang together. I've been trying for several days now to understand how he justifies his carelessness with the facts, and I've come to the conclusion that the strain of defending an obviously inferior challenger has caused him to revert to a world of fantasy, where black is white, down is up and "Grays" is a more exciting name than "Senators." Yes, my opponent has drifted into Superman's Bizarro World.

I'm sure my opponent is shaking his head. He thinks I'm being too harsh. Am I? I'd like to say so, but I can't find any other explanation that makes sense. Perhaps my opponent can explain some of the more... curious apects of his argument.

For instance, what part of "Washington born and bred" does my opponent fail to understand? He cites some Google-search statistics, as if they were at all meaningful. "Born and bred," our more astute readers will recognize, refers to a place of origin, not the number of hits a name receives in an online search. (I realize this is an elementary fact to many of you, but I'm explaining it slowly so my opponent will understand.) To use an example of my opponent's, he is from Minnesota, but no longer lives there. He is still Minnesota born and bred, no matter how many ears he's lived elsewhere.

As for those other teams that use the Senators moniker currently... they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, no? If the name were as boring as my opponent suggests, it would be shunned. But rather, it has been adopted multiple times. Meanwhile, since the Homestead club packed up shop, the "Grays" name has been used by... no one. Must be because it's so exciting, right? But we'll return to that point in a minute.

My opponent rather amusingly discussed the "souls" of ballclubs, and I was so charmed by this I nearly failed to notice that his argument contains the seeds of its own destruction. For if the Dodgers, Giants et al. did not become "defunct" teams when they moved, then how did the Senators become defunct? As my opponent himself said in his opening statement, the original Senators now reside in Minnesota. How can my opponent have it both ways? Either the Senators are no more defunct than the Dodgers etc., or they are just as gone and therefore belong on the list with those other teams. Which is it, sir?

My opponent then goes on to suggest that "no American League team was truly 'big league' in 1901." Really? That's quite interesting, since Major League baseball regards the league as a valid major league in that year, and every year since. It strikes me as odd that my opponent would choose to argue against MLB's interpretation of its own history. But then, perhaps this is to be expected from a man who still does not realize that the Milwaukee Brewers existed as a minor-league team before the major-league squad arrived, despite my having brought it up in my last post. (To be fair, the minor-league Brewers only existed for 50 years, so they were easy to miss.)

My opponent then goes on to attempt to defend "Grays," perhaps the most boring name ever devised by man, as somehow more exciting than "Senators." It's an old debater's trick to go on the offensive on your weakest point, before your opponent has a chance to pound you to smithereens with it. And my opponent is a skilled debater who's learned his lessons well. So it's perhaps no surprise that he chose to mention this point first.

It is something of a surprise, however, that he made such a hash of it. Perhaps you didn't notice, having been dazzled by all his pretty pictures. So let me take you through some of the, ahem, "high points" of his argument. And I do mean "high" in the wacky-weed sense. (I will not stoop to accusing my opponent of being a Natty Boh drinker, as he did in his post. I have too much class to accuse him of drinking swill.)

He contends that "like all truly bad team names, [Senators] has three syllables." The latter part is indisputably true. Senators does indeed have three syllables. Just like Cardinals, Orioles, Indians, and Athletics, all of which are well-liked and historically-grounded names. Perhaps my opponent is afraid of multisyllabic words, but there's no good historical reason for the rest of us to be.

Then he proceeds to show us a bunch of pictures of wrinkly white men in conservative suits and uses this to conclude that Senators is less interesting than Grays.

Well, I've assembled a little photo gallery of my own, to show you how exciting gray really is. Ready? Here we go!

Ooooohhh... ahhhh....

Boy, isn't this exciting?

Wait, it gets better...

No, it doesn't.

Bored yet?

How about now?

Zzzzzzz....

And not every Senator is as dull as my opponent's little slide show would suggest. Ladies and gentlemen, I offer you... Mary Landrieu!

Definitely not boring!

I'd like to see the Gray that can match her for excitement.

Oh, by the way, while there are many famous, illustrious and exciting Senators, the only famous Gray I can think of is.... Gray Davis.

Hi, remember me?

If there is a more boring person in politics today, I have not met this person. And since my opponent made such a big deal about the electoral defeats of Senators, I would like to point out that the last time that the above-mentioned Gray was involved in an election, he was the first governor to be recalled from office in over 80 years. Senators may lose, but Grays lose historically.

I've really just scratched the surface of my opponent's deceptions and contradictions, but as with the last post, discussing them all in detail would take too long. So let me address one of the most popular arguments in favor of the Grays: acknowledging the Negro Leagues.

My opponent can spin it any way he likes, but he knows as well as I do that were it not for the existence of the Homestead teams, no one would give even a moment's consideration to a snoozer of a name like Grays. People like my opponent support Grays because they believe that the league and the sport don't do enough to honor the Negro Leagues' heritage. And they have a point. MLB doesn't do enough to honor the Negro Leagues. And people like my opponent, men and women of conscience that they are, think that naming our team after the Grays will rectify this historical oversight.

I applaud the sentiment but not the execution. A team name is just a token. White people with guilty consciences approve tokens like these because they can feel better without exerting much effort. Future generations may well believe that Martin Luther King's primary accomplishment was getting us a day off work in January.

Do you think DC's sizable African American community is going to be grateful to the powers that be for this show of tokenism? Let's look at some history. Specifically, let's look at my opponent's beloved example, the Kansas City Royals. The team was named to honor the legendary Monarchs, as my opponent pointed out in his opening statement. Now, if you believe the argument of Grays supporters, black fans would be flocking to the Royals, right? Well, according to this article, it ain't so, Joe:

More than 50 million fans have attended Royals games inside Kauffman Stadium since the Truman Sports Complex opened in 1973. Last season almost 1.8 million pushed through the turnstiles at the K. Some of these fans were baseball junkies, some merely curious tourists. One trait that nearly all these fans shared was that they were white.

Mike Levy, the Royals' vice president of marketing, acknowledges the franchise's problem in attracting African-American fans. "The statistics are real," says Levy. "We know from our focus groups that there are a lot of African-American fans watching the Royals on television and listening on the radio every night. It's difficult to understand why they don't come out to the stadium."

Buck O'Neil, the Negro Baseball League legend, thinks he knows why Kansas City's black residents have turned away from the Royals, and the problem dates back to the Athletics' arrival on the turf of the Monarchs, the city's Negro League team. "The A's came to Kansas City [in 1955] and didn't sell baseball to the black baseball fans," recalls O'Neil. "They sold it to Johnson County. They sold it to the white fans. They had a built-in fanbase with the Monarchs' fans, but they didn't think they needed them."

There is an underlying animosity in the black community toward the Royals that the organization seems unaware of. Glen Graham's father pitched for the Belmont Baby Blue Birds in the Negro Leagues. Graham hawked programs inside the old Municipal Stadium at 22nd and Brooklyn, right in Kansas City's most historic black neighborhood. He believes the Royals stole baseball. "They built [Kauffman] Stadium and designed it for people other than us," Graham says while attending the Cardinals series. "The basic black family can't afford to pay $15 for a seat like I did here tonight."...

Dell Wells owns D's Barber Shop on 34th and Prospect. "We have that conversation here at the shop all the time," says Wells, when asked why more blacks don't go to the K. "I used to be an avid fan of the Royals, but I don't follow them much anymore. There just aren't a lot of black players on the team, and the Royals don't want to spend the money to sign any quality black players."...

"The Royals need to do more than give away 30,000 Monarch caps once a year," says [Negro Leagues Museum director Don] Motley, referring to Monarch Cap Night, which takes place Saturday, June 23. "It's embarrassing that Kansas City is the home of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and they don't do more to attract black fans."

A team name is an empty gesture. If we want to be serious about attracting African American fans to the sport (and we should), let's do something meaningful. Let's market aggressively east of the river. Let's make sure there are affordable tickets in the new park, so that the residents of the surrounding neighborhoods can afford to go to the games. Let's put a Negro Leagues museum inside the new park, so that fans of all races can learn more about an oft-neglected chapter of baseball's history. Let's sign more African-American players. Let's hire more minorities on the coaching staff and in the front office. Let's do outreach, working with programs like Reviving Baseball in the Inner Cities to spread the sport in the African American community. In short, let's be a model franchise for minority participation in the sport.

If we want to be serious about bringing the game back in the African American community, we need to take serious measures. This house is rotten at the foundation, and my opponent wants to apply a fresh coat of paint. We can do better. We should do better. And the Senators will do better.

Posted by: Fred at 01:07 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 2200 words, total size 14 kb.

Denny McLain, Moderator

Now we turn to BallWonk's first statement. At the conclusion of his remarks, each side will have two daily statements remaining before we hear closing statements on Monday. I would like to remind the audience that they can vote as often as they like, up to once per day, in the ongoing poll between the Senators and the Grays.

In addition, viewers should feel free to comment on this debate, either in the comments section here or at BallWonk's blog. Speak up and be heard! Or anyway, that's what my lawyer told me before my first trial.

And I would like to remind Messrs. Wonk and Fred that my close, personal friend and former cellmate Fat Tony takes most unkindly to disparaging references to my own record as a pitcher for the Washington Senators. While I rise above petty obsessions with the past, Fat Tony wonders just how many games you think you could win if you had to rely on the 1971 Senators for run support.

Now we turn the floor over to BallWonk and the Grays.

BallWonk, Speaking for the Grays

Senators is "Washington born and bred"? Au contraire, the good people of Canada would say, pointing to the fact that a Google search for "Washington Senators" yields a paltry 147,000 hits while Googling "Ottawa Senators" generates more than 400,000. Type "www.senatorsbaseball.com" in your browser and do you find a page devoted to Washington's obsolete teams? No, you get the home page of the Harrisburg Senators - Washington's own farm club.

Mr. Fred, you've been hitting the Natty Boh a little too hard if you think anyone is fooled by your manipulations of baseball history. For one thing, the Oakland A's, Atlanta Braves, San Francisco Giants, and Los Angeles Dodgers were not named after previous big-league teams. They were those big-league teams. BallWonk isn't named after some guy who used to live in Minnesota; he is that guy.

The implication of Mr. Fred's specious argument is that teams die and are reborn when they move. And when the Repture comes, will some teams bodily ascend to heaven? Can the Devil Rays receive communion? Do you really expect us to believe that the Yankees have a soul?

And neither were the Milwaukee Brewers and Baltimore Orioles named after previous big-league teams in those cities. For one thing, no American League team was truly "big league" in 1901. But more importantly, the people who named the Brewers and the Orioles did not adopt those names to honor two-bit fly-by-night teams from the McKinley administration. No, the Brewers were named in honor of Milwaukee's proud status as America's beer capital. And the Orioles were named in honor of perhaps the greatest minor-league team in history, which played for 50 years after the original O's moved to the Bronx. Those fabulous minor league Orioles gave Babe Ruth his start and Buzz Arlett
a record-smashing cap to his career.

No, if we stick to the facts, here is the scorecard for clubs named in honor of past minor and negro versus major league teams:

TEAM - CHAMPIONSHIPS - (PENNANTS)

MAJORS

Senators -- 0 (0)

Total -- 0 (0)

MINORS/NEGRO

Angels -- 1 (1)

Marlins -- 2 (2)

Orioles -- 3 (6)

Padres -- 0 (2)

Royals -- 1 (2)

Total -- 7 (13)

The truth looks quite different when you take the beer goggles off, no?

You know what else looks different when you wake up the next morning? The Senators name.

Senators backers talk trash about the Grays for being too dull, too, well, gray. "It's not exciting enough," they say.

Which makes BallWonk think to himself, "What is that blue powder they're adding to their Mai Tais, and can I have some too?"

Because, in point of fact, Senators is a terrible name. The baseball gods stopped trying to make dull names after they hit the humdrum jackpot with Senators. It is the acme of boring.

For one thing, like all truly bad team names, it has three syllables. Count 'em. Sen. A. Tors. That's one syllable too many, just like the Devil Rays and Diamond Backs. Is that the company we want to keep? I say no.

And speaking of the company we'll keep, how about this:

Because, you know, what we really need is a baseball team named after Ted Kennedy and Jesse Helms. Nothing says baseball like Hillary Clinton and Strom Thurmond. The plain fact is that America hates its Senators. In the 11 presidential elections since 1964, seven times Americans have faced a choice between a current or former U.S. Senator and Some Other Guy. They've chosen Some Other Guy all seven times.

In fact, the baseball Senators and real Senators have this in common: In the 20th Century, each has won the big prize just once.

Americans just don't like Senators. And Washington, without Senators of our own, resents them even more. Twice since moving to Washington, BallWank has nearly been run down by SUV-driving U.S. Senators from his own party. Who hasn't been waiting at a restaurant for tables said to be an hour away only to watch a Senator and his party breeze right by? Heck, when George Lucas needed new bad guys for his Star Wars prequels, he made them Senators.

But the fact that by naming our team the Senators, we would be associating with the hundred least popular people in America is beside the point. The point is that Senators is a boring name.

The U.S. Senate has its very own TV channel, broadcast to every home in America with cable. Have you ever watched C-SPAN 2? Live coverage of the Senate makes watching dead grass wilt feel as exciting as a Jackie Chan movie. Pranksters and satirists have tried broadcasting fish tanks and fireplaces on TV, but as yet no one has found a way to make television more boring than live coverage of the U.S. Senate.

Want to see just how exciting Senators really are? Take a look, and try not to fall asleep:

It's like hypnosis, but painful

80-year-old men sitting in chairs. Feel the excitement!

This is what we should name our team after?

Still awake out there?

You know what's really exciting? Committee meetings

Sometimes, C-SPAN 2 shows nothing happening at all

Senators more exciting than Grays? Puh-leeeze. Who, given a choice between watching the U.S. Senate all day and watching gray paint dry on the side of a battleship, wouldn't choose the paint?

And what do you call the Senators for short? Sens doesn't work. S's is unpronounceable. Tors is the protagonist of a bad fantasy novel. For generations, Washingtonians called their Senators the Nats, short for Nationals, proving that Senators is so boring that even Washington fans reject it.

So while I admit that Grays lacks the drama of Rangers or Pirates, the plain truth is Senators is worse.

And what's so special about the Senators anyway? The last time the Senators played in Washington, only 655,156 people showed up. That's more than 1,000 fewer people per game than the 2004 Expos drew in Montreal. If we assume that the average fan attended three games in the 1971 season, that means that there were only about 220,000 real Senators fans in Washington when the team left.

The Census Bureau tells us that the average American moves once every five years and dies once every 70 years. Factoring in relocation and mortality, there should be only 2,844 real Senators fans left in the Washington area. Here's how the numbers work out:

YEAR -- SENATORS FANS

1971 -- 218,385

1976 -- 109,193

1981 -- 54,597

1986 -- 27,299

1991 -- 13,650

1996 -- 6, 825

2001 -- 3,413

2004 (est) -- 2,844

That's about as many people as attend an average Potomac Cannons game. In fact, with annual attendance above 170,000, the Cannons probably have about 57,000 fans in the Washington area, or 20 for every remaining Senators fan. Just days ago, 59.5 million Americans voted against a Senator for president. For every remaining Senators fan in Washington, 21,000 Americans voted against the Senator on Election Day.

That makes Senators even less popular than Devil Rays.

The choice in this debate remains as simple as ever: Do we want to name our team after the least popular and most boring institution in America? Do we want to associate our ballclub with the likes of Trent Lott and Fritz Hollings? With losers like Barry Goldwater, George McGovern, Walter Mondale, Bob Dole, and John Kerry? When America thinks of our team, do we want them to think of boring losers that nobody likes?

BallWonk hopes not. BallWonk believes Washington can do - should do - better.

Posted by: Fred at 02:50 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Moderator

Thank you both for those eloquent opening statements, gentlemen. We will now begin the back-and-fourth portion of the debate. Each of you will be given three days in which to lay out your cases in greater detail. These days will alternate, so that one person will speak today, the other will have the opportunity for rebuttal the next day, and so forth. By mutual agreement, Mediocre Fred will have the first opportunity to speak.

Incidentally, I noticed that during your opening statements, both of you made fun of my record in Washington. I assure you and the viewing audience that I can take a joke just as well as the next man, but I would like both of you to direct your attention to my close friend and associate Fat Tony, who is seated in the front row. You will notice that he has brought his brass knuckles with him to the debate. Fat Tony is a close personal friend of mine, and he tends to take criticism of me personally. Very personally. I would suggest you take this under advisement as you craft your further arguments.

Mr. Fred, please proceed.

Mediocre Fred, Speaking for the Senators

Thank you, Mr. McLain. And I would like to assure both you and Fat Tony that when I referred to your tenure with Senators, I meant it with nothing but respect.

I'd like to commend my opponent for his clever and well-crafted opening statement. I particularly enjoyed this passage:

Since baseball started moving teams and expanding, clubs have adopted numerous new names. Most of the time, teams have chosen original names based on local associations or wildlife. But six squads have chosen new names based on previous club names. One, the Kansas City Royals, honored a Negro League team. Four, the Orioles, Padres, Angels, and Marlins, paid tribute to old minor-league teams. All of these teams have gone to the World Series, and all but the Padres have won the Series.

Only one team, the Washington Senators, was named after a big-league team. The expansion Senators never won a pennant, sent no players to the Hall of Fame, posted only one winning record in 11 years, and couldn't even draw a million fans that year.

History shows that when we name teams in honor of old Negro League or minor league squads, the new teams become popular winners. When we name teams after defunct major league squads, the new teams become unpopular losers. The baseball gods are clear and just in their judgment of new team names.

Pretty impressive marshaling of statistics, no? He almost had me convinced for a second there.

Then, of course, I took a closer look at that statement, and I realized those numbers were more twisted than a Jack Ryan sex party. As you'll see throughout the course of this debate, my opponent's grasp of statistics is weaker than Marion Barry's grasp of quantum physics. I know that we're supposed to be making our own cases here and not questioning our opponent's, but I simply must ask: Why can't you just be straight with the people of Washington? Are you that careless about the facts, or just so desperate to make your case that you'll twist the numbers until they sing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame?"

For instance, my opponent would have you believe that our Senators are the only team ever to adopt the name of a defunct major-league squad. And that simply isn't true.

Perhaps you've heard of the Milwaukee Brewers. Many people think they simply adopted the name of the local minor-league team (although oddly, my opponent didn't even recall this), but in fact, the Milwaukee Brewers were a charter franchise in the American League. They existed in Milwaukee for one season before becoming the St. Louis Browns. And the Brewers have indeed been to a World Series -- the much-beloved club known as Harvey's Wallbangers made the Series in 1982. Did my opponent not know this? Or was he trying to hide it?

That Browns franchise that relocated from Milwaukee relocated famously in 1954 to Baltimore, where they became the Orioles. And the Orioles are the linchpin of my opponent's argument, since they're by far the most successful of the teams who adopted minor-league monikers. But somehow he omitted the fact that the Orioles, too, were a charter American League member, playing two seasons in Baltimore before becoming the New York Highlanders (today's Yankees). Prior to that, the Orioles were in the National League from 1892 to 1899. That Orioles team, piloted by Ned Hanlon and featuring Wee Willie Keeler as its star, was a legend in its time, leading the league in wins three years running, from 1894 to 1896. Talk about a proud pedigree. It's hard to imagine that this could have slipped my opponent's mind. Did it? Or does he have something to hide?

And what about the Milwaukee/Atlanta Braves? What about the Kansas City/Oakland Athletics? What about the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants? These team all adopted names of major-league clubs that, by definition, became defunct when they left their original towns. Could my opponent have forgotten these teams, too? As the Church Lady would say, "How conveeeeenient."

Now that we have the facts, let's have an honest chart comparing teams that adopt major-league monikers and those that adopt minor-league or Negro League names. (The statistically-minded are free to check my math at Baseball Reference.)

(The chart format is as follows: Team name -- WS appearances (WS wins)

BIG LEAGUE
Dodgers -- 9 (5)
Athletics -- 6 (4)
Orioles -- 6 (3)
Braves -- 7 (2)
Giants -- 3 (0)
Brewers -- 1 (0)
Senators -- 0 (0)
Total -- 32 (14)

LITTLE LEAGUE
Marlins -- 2 (2)
Royals -- 2 (1)
Angels -- 1 (1)
Padres -- 2 (0)
Total -- 7 (4)

The picture looks quite different when the facts are viewed honestly, doesn't it? Turns out that the baseball gods are indeed clear and just; they respect tradition, and big-league tradition beats bush-league tradition every time. These are facts, not exaggerations. It's easier to traffic in facts when the facts are on your side, isn't it?

Now, I can't help but wonder why my opponent would go to such lengths to hide the truth. It's true that the weaker your position, the more you have to stretch the truth to defend it. But still, I wouldn't have imagined that his position was so desperate that he'd have to go to these lengths to conceal the facts.

But if I try to point out all the exaggerations and inaccuracies in my opponent's argument, I'll be here all month. (Never mind going after the fact that he admits an infatuation with Lisa Lisa & the Cult Jam and doesn't acknowledge the '80s girl-pop superiority of the Bangles.) Instead, I'd like to move on to the next point in my argument: the import problem.

No, I'm not talking about those low-priced Chinese electronics that are putting our workers out of good factory jobs. I'm talking about the name my opponent is arguing for. When Kansas City chose "Royals" for its team name, they were honoring the legendary Monarchs, a famous and successful team and, most importantly, a team that was local to KC. That's not the case with "Grays."

Did you know that the legendary franchise whose praises my opponent sings so loudly was not called the Washington Grays? No. It was called the Homestead Grays. Ever wonder where that "Homestead" comes from? Perhaps you assumed it was just a splash of color. After all, the Cuban Giants didn't actually play in Cuba, did they?

But no, Homestead is an actual town. It was a steel-mill town right outside of... Pittsburgh. And during the glorious run of championships that my opponent cited, the Grays split time between Griffith Stadium here and Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. And all that time, they retained the "Homestead" name. Here's a pop quiz that should be easy for true Washingtonians to answer: If an politician from Pennsylvania comes to serve in D.C., rents a house in Georgetown, lives there on weekdays when Congress is in session but keeps his Pennsylvania plates, does that makes him a D.C. resident? Of course not. The name for which my opponent argued so eloquently is an out-of-town interloper. Or to use a term familiar to my southern friends, a carpetbagger.

It's not enough that we had to fight for home rule. It's not enough that we had to fight to vote for president. It's not bad enough that we still don't have voting representatives in Congress. Now we have outsiders -- well-meaning outsiders, but outsiders nonetheless -- attempting to foist someone else's name on us. We've had enough of meddling control boards and corn-belt Congressmen calling our shots. Are we going to stand back and let another interloper invade our city?

The Washington I know rejects that. The Washington I know is sick and tired of outsiders seizing all the power. The Washington I know stands four-square behind its own history, loud and proud. The Washington I know doesn't need to import Pittsburgh's name.

Senators is the only candidate in this race that is Washington-born and Washington-bred. Senators is the name that is uniquely identified with Washington in major-league baseball's history. And Senators is the name that the people of Washington have overwhelmingly, and repeatedly, preferred for their baseball team.

So will we stand up and fight for the name that we've always loved, the name that's truly ours, the name that is the people's choice? Or will we stand by and let a bunch of out-of-towners give us Pittsburgh's second-hand name? I know and trust that my fellow baseball citizens will make the right choice.

Thank you.

Posted by: Fred at 12:34 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 1643 words, total size 10 kb.

Opening Statements

Moderator

Good evening, I'm Denny McLain, formerly of the Washington Senators and currently of the Michigan state penal system, and welcome to the D.C. Armory, site of this week's Great Name Debate 2004. Seated to my left in the Josh Gibson jersey is the estimable BallWonk, who will be debating on behalf of the name "Grays," winner of the name-the-team poll on his site. On my right, in the navy cap with the block red "W", is the equally estimable Mediocre Fred, who will be debating on behalf of the incumbent name, "Senators."

Our moderator

In a format agreed upon by both parties, each candidate will make a brief opening statement, followed by alternating posts once a day for the next six days, and concluding with closing statements on the final day. After that, we all plan to go down to Fado's and drink beers until we go numb.

Both candidates are free to use any supporting materials which they feel may aid them in making their cases. Name-calling, rumors, hearsay, innuendo, half-truths, untruths, groundless speculation and outright lies are both allowed and encouraged. OK, not so much lies. But this is Washington, and who can ever know what the truth is? Profanity, obscenity and racial epithets are outlawed, unless they're really funny.

This debate is being simulcast here and at BallWonk's site. Readers can vote for a winner during the debate and for the week following, by which time Emperor Selig and his dark minions will probably have chosen a completely different name anyway. Vote as often as you like, but no more than once per day.

By virute of a coin toss prior to the debate, Mediocre Fred has won the right to go first. Mr. Fred, please proceed.

Mediocre Fred, Speaking for the Senators
 
Thank you, Mr. BallWonk, for joining me here this evening in this noble attempt to inform and entertain the baseball public. Thank you also to the Armory for agreeing to host us, to Movable Type for making this broadcast possible, to the audience for tuning us in, and to Mr. McLain for agreeing to moderate. (And I must say, Denny, that orange jumpsuit looks quite slimming on you.)

Baseball is America's game. At its best, baseball embodies those qualities that are best about our country: its pastoral roots, its ethic of ordered striving toward a common goal, and its balance of democracy and meritocracy in its 8-team playoff field. (Those who would argue that the Yankees have subverted this particular virtue in recent years will find a sympathetic ear at this podium, but all the Yankees have done is try to buy success at any price. What could be more American than that?)

Fathers playing catch with sons, mothers playing catch with daughters, families going to minor-leagues parks on Saturday nights... baseball is timeless, woven into the fabric of our culture. And baseball does best when it evokes its past. Baseball has a rich, layered history, written and oral, unmatched by any other sport and rivaled by few institutions in our society. To evoke that history is to strum deeply-embedded chords in the human soul. And in no city in America is that truer than in Washington D.C. As Mayor Williams said at the press conference announcing baseball's return to this fair city, Washington's 33-year
hiatus from the game was merely the interruption of a conversation, a conversation that begins anew in 2005, at long last.

In the spirit of restarting the city's discourse with the game and the sport after these fallow decades, the team could do no better than to pick up where it left off. Not in the sense of a fan riot, a last-place team, or Denny McLain on the mound (no offense intended to our esteemed moderator), but by regaining the name by which our team was popularly known throughout its history in our town. I come before you tonight to ask that you re-elect the Senators as the name of Washington's new baseball team.

"Senators" is, of course, a two-term incumbent with decades of distinguished service in Washington, but it is far from the sort of incumbent that heads off to the legislature, gets drunk on power and privilege, forgets its roots, leaves its wife for a twenty-something intern and is eventually apprehended in a car with a stripper next to the Tidal Basin. No, if there's one phrase that can sum up Senators' term in office, it is "the people's choice."

It was the people's choice from the beginning. Washington's American League entry was born in 1901 carrying the official nickname of "Nationals," a bland and inoffensive name, the Joe Lieberman of monikers. Despite Major League Baseball's heavy-handed attempt to enforce the recognition of the team's offical name, the people and press opted for "Senators" practically from the beginning. And why not? It's uniquely Washington in a way that other names are not (no other American city houses the U.S. Senate, you may have noticed), it has a distinctive and pleasing sound (much better mouthfeel than "Nationals" or our current opponent, "Grays") and it provides headline writers with many more catchy possibilities ("Senators Censure Phils," "Senators Vote Down Braves," &c. ad nauseam).

Though MLB did not officially yield to the will of the people until the '50s, there was never any doubt what the fans, our team's constituents, wanted. They voted, time and again, every way they knew how, for Senators.

And it remains the people's choice today. Public-opinion polls routinely favor Senators for the new team's name by wide margins. This is a fact, much like the law of gravity only more interesting. And yet, when my estimable opponent assembled his name-the-team primary, the incumbent, the people's choice, was mysteriously excluded. How could this be? Was it an attack of amnesia? Did the bitch set us up? My opponent constructed a clever rationale, allegedly based on the Constitution, on which he based his decision to exclude Senators. If this wasn't an example of legislating from the bench, I don't know what is. But nevertheless, I think the good gentleman may have conveniently bypassed the true rationale. Did he not conclude that any name-the-team primary including Senators would be so one-sided as to make the whole concept of a primary seem derisory?

But what's done is done, and now his alleged "people's choice," Grays, will stand on the merits against the name that fans then and now clearly prefer. Now, Grays is a choice with a history of its own, and the Negro Leagues certainly deserve more recognition than they receive currently. In other circumstances, in other markets, Grays might be a perfectly worthy choice. But who would be fool enough, in a case where the will of the people is so emphatically expressed, to fly in the face of it and impose a name that smacks of political correctness?

Imagine with me, if you will, a young man who grew up on the Senators. He was born with the first-generation club, suffered the loss of a rising contender but picked up the second-generation club without a beat, then saw his club depart for the badlands of Texas without so much as a "thank you." He was, let's say, 18 when his Senators became the Rangers. He shed some tears, but he figured that baseball would never leave the nation's capital unrepresented by the nation's pastime for very long. So our young man waited. He was 21 when the Padres almost moved to D.C. He was 23 when President Ford tried and failed to persuade MLB to bring an expansion team here. He was 34 when Washington became the leader in an expansion drive that never happened. He was 38 when the capital lost out to Denver and Miami, and 42 when we lost to Phoenix and Tampa Bay (America's two largest and most vibrant retirement communities). When this year's happy news came, he'd just turned 51. He'd started to wonder if he'd die without seeing another major-league game in Washington. This is a man who's paid his dues. What name do you think he wants for his new team? Of course, he wants the only name he's ever known: Senators.

Major League Baseball needs to do more to acknowledge the Negro Leagues' legacy. But don't balance your historical deficits on Washington's back, MLB. Rather, yield to the will of the people. Bring back the historic choice. Bring back the people's choice. Bring back the right choice: Senators.

Thank you.

BallWonk, Speaking for the Grays

Good day, and thank you, Mr. Fred, for proposing this debate, and Mr. McLean, for hosting it.

With all due respect to Mr. McLean, he is the personification of why Senators is the wrong name for our team. Here is a pitcher who won 31 games for Detroit in 1968, a win total unmatched in the 36 seasons since. In his career, he won 131 games and lost only 91. Yet the one season he spent in a Washington Senators uniform, just three years after going 31-6, he won 10 and lost 22. Even Michael Dukakis had a better record than that.

For a brief, shining moment in the 1920s and 1930s, the Senators were a good ballclub. But since then, since Franklin Roosevelt's first administration, the Senators have always been Washington's lovable losers.

The thing about lovable loser is that they're, well, losers. Has any baseball fan ever watched his club finish in last place and say to himself, "Self, thank goodness we didn't make the playoffs; my October schedule is just too booked to watch more baseball." Or, "Self, as long as our team is named the Senators, who really wants to win games? Not me!"

No. No baseball fan has ever thought either of those things.

So why embrace a legacy of losing?

Look, BallWonk respects the memories of today's older fans, who were adolescents and young men and women back when the Senators played losing baseball in Washington. Why, I sometimes listen to the music of my own teenage years. But even though I might enjoy a nostalgic listen every now and then, I did grow up. Part of growing up is recognizing that no matter how much fun I had dancing to "Head to Toe" or "Lost in Emotion" at the junior high spring fling, Lisa Lisa & the Cult Jam were a terrible band.

As much as I cherish my memories of Lisa Lisa & the Cult Jam's two hits in 1987, I don't really want every song on the radio to sound like that today. Nor should anyone allow the fond memories of their youths to fool them into thinking that the Senators were any good. They were not. They were an embarrassment to baseball, a monumentally bad team, the very opposite of what we want our new franchise to be.

And anyway, the Constitution forbids us from using the Senators name. Despite Mr. Fred's valiant efforts to spin the issue, this new team is not a two-term incumbent. Washington has already had two Senators, and both are alive and well and still serving. The first now plays in the Minnesota Territories. BallWonk has met many of the Senators who moved to Minnesota, including Harmon "Killer" Killebrew, who is just about the nicest and most gracious famous person in the world. He brews a good root beer, too.

And likewise with Washington's second Senators, who now play in South Fork, Texas. Both teams still exist, and so this new team is not a continuation of the old ones. It would be a third Senators, something the Constitution expressly forbids in Article I, Section 3:

The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State.

What could be more clear? It would take years to amend the Constitution to allow for a third Senators, but our team needs new uniforms by February.

Senators also fails the important question of trust. For 58 years, the team was named the Nats but called the Senators. Then for 14 years, the team was named the Senators but called the Nats. That's flip-flopping. We'll never know where our team stands - other than last in the division - if we adopt the Senators name.

So Senators brings a record of failure and betrayal, it would violate the Constitution, and it's an untrustworthy flip-flopper. What about the Grays?

There are almost too many good reasons to choose the Grays to count.

While they played in Washington, the Grays won 10 pennants, nine championships, and sent eight players to the Hall of Fame.

The Senators played in Washington for seven times as long but won only three pennants and one championship.

The Grays featured a veritable Who's Who of Negro League players and dominated the Negro Leagues more absolutely than any team has ever dominated its league. Not even Michael Jordan's Bulls were as supreme as the Grays were in Washington.

Since baseball started moving teams and expanding, clubs have adopted numerous new names. Most of the time, teams have chosen original names based on local associations or wildlife. But six squads have chosen new names based on previous club names. One, the Kansas City Royals, honored a Negro League team. Four, the Orioles, Padres, Angels, and Marlins, paid tribute to old minor-league teams. All of these teams have gone to the World Series, and all but the Padres have won the Series.

Only one team, the Washington Senators, was named after a big-league team. The expansion Senators never won a pennant, sent no players to the Hall of Fame, posted only one winning record in 11 years, and couldn't even draw a million fans that year.

History shows that when we name teams in honor of old Negro League or minor league squads, the new teams become popular winners. When we name teams after defunct major league squads, the new teams become unpopular losers. The baseball gods are clear and just in their judgment of new team names.

The choice in this debate could not be starker: Do we want to celebrate failure or success? Do we want to trust a flip-flopping loser or a consistent winner? Do we want to invoke the curse of the baseball gods or their blessing?

Do we want our new team to embarrass us with their losing ways or inspire us with their winning manner? Do we want to be the laughingstocks of the NL East or its masters?

In short, do we want to be the sad, sorry Senators or the great and glorious Grays?

BallWonk knows not what others may choose, but as for me, give me glory. Give me the Grays.

Thank you.

Posted by: Fred at 08:29 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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