Carol went to the Washington Nationals home opener this week. Saw the Prez throw out the first pitch and watched the Nats defeat the Diamondbacks. It is ironic that for years I anxiously awaited the return of baseball to our nation’s capital city, and the year it finally does I move to Korea. Alas. Well, I am glad that Carol was able to attend in my place.

Over at Powerline, Paul Mirengoff offers this bit of DC baseball tivia:

Question: What city has had the best ex-ballplayers manage its baseball team back-to-back? Answer: Washington, D.C. — Ted Williams and Frank Robinson.

It’s a trick question, of course, because the two managed different franchises 34 years apart. But that was just a technicality tonight, as Washington celebrated its first regular season home game since 1971. President Bush threw the first pitch, renewing a tradition that goes back to William Howard Taft, but had ended due to circumstances beyond our control, with Richard Nixon in 1969. (I should note that the president didn’t always throw the pitch — at the one home opener I attended, in 1967, Vice President Humphrey did the honors). Tonight, President Bush used the last baseball thrown in the Washington Senator’s final home game. It was presented to him by the pitcher who hurled it, Joe Grzenda, a journeyman left-handed reliever who kept it all these years (Joe could sometimes get lefties out — today he’d probably make, what, about $2 million a year?).

In the first inning a kid in the stands caught a foul ball. He and his mom started jumping up and down deliriously. It reminded me of how much joy has been absent from this city for the past 34 years.

Ah, there is much that I miss about my homeland, but baseball is right up there. I caught a bit of the Yankees-Red Sox game on TV last night (commentary in Korean, which was no worse that what you usually get from the Americans–both ununderstandable (hmm, is that a word? I don’t think I’ve ever had occasion to say ununderstandable, but that’s pretty much how I feel when I am out and about in Korea–the street signs, the store signs, the people talking–all ununderstandable).

Anyway, I have watched some of the Korean “major leagues” on TV too. It appears to be the minor league equivalent of AA (at best) in the States. Still, there are some good players, and baseball is baseball. I plan on catching some games in person this summer. It’s funny, the teams here are all corporate owned, so you have the Hyundai Unicorns, the SK Tigers, the Kia Dragons (I might have the nicknames wrong, I’m still learning the teams). Koreans are really proud of their countrymen who make the majors. And as I learned from another American bloggers’ experience, it does not pay to be critical of Koreans playing in the US, even if their talents are suspect. Read this post from Ruminations in Korea for a good laugh. For the record, Kim, Byung Hyun, does suck, he single handedly killed my fantasy team one year.