It’s been a long season for the Nats. True, they somehow managed an eight-game winning streak along the way, but even with that they’ve compiled the worst record in major league baseball by far. And some of their losses have been epic. Take, for example, the one in which, with the score tied in the bottom of the ninth and runners on second and third with one out, the Nats’ pitcher was issuing an intentional walk in order to fill the bases and set up a double play possibility. A good move, strategically. But while the pitcher was beginning his delivery on one of the balls he was intentionally lobbing wide of the plate, he got his feet tangled up and stopped his pitching motion. “Balk!,” screamed the umpire, waving the runner in from third base to score a game-winning intentional-walk walk-off balk. It’s been that kind of year.
Anyway, on August 8, the Nats gladdened the hearts of the home crowd, not with the quality of their play on the field, but with the great rendition of the National Anthem that Glenn Donnellan, a violinist for the National Symphony Orchestra, played on his Louisville Slugger. And here it is.
[Hat tip to Chris Deering]