Here's to A Better Fan Expereince

The Washington Nationals should take a lesson from the Savannah Bananas, who played up the road last weekend to sell-out crowds and enthusiastic fans in Baltimore last weekend. The Bananas prioritize putting on a good show for their fans by hustling and playing solid baseball, along with their trick plays and humorous antics.  The NY Times recently chronicled several lessons that could be learned by Major League Baseball from the Bananas at: 

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6535476/2025/08/05/savannah-bananas-what-can-mlb-learn/

Unfortunately, the Nationals’ recent performances, like the one I witnessed at Nats Park on Tuesday night against the also struggling Oakland A's, was almost an insult to their fans.  Loyal fans still come in respectable numbers but get little respect.  The Nats lacked hustle, made baserunning and, fielding blunders, and often seemed not to care how the game was going. 

Just as a responsible supermarket gives refunds to customers for a poor product, the Nationals should offer refunds when their on-field performance is similarly subpar. Have to listen to loud celebratory walk-up music for batters that seem lost at the plate and are losing by a large margin feels insulting to the loyal fans and to the music itself. Instead of celebratory songs, replacing it with silence or playing satirical versions of the walk up songs would be more appropriate until the batters and the team performs better.

The team's late-game highlights on the scoreboard are another point of concern and an insult to the fans. When  eighth inning highlights consist of little more than the Nats players taking the field to start the game, the results of the President's Race, and the replaying of merely routine fielding plays, it is a sign of hyping poor performance. It is also disrespectful and insulting to the fans to ignore the often spectacular plays by the opposing team, especially in a lopsided game, and only replay routine, decent plays of the Nats.  The A's lead off batter, catcher, Shea Langeliers made baseball history becoming just the second catcher in Major League history to homer three times out of the leadoff spot and the first since Travis d’Arnaud did it for the Rays on July 15, 2019,.and being the first player to have three homers in his first career game batting leadoff since 1900.   But this was never recognized at Nat's Park, but see:  https://www.mlb.com/news/shea-langeliers-multi-homer-game-leadoff-spot for the homers.

While Nats fans are generally resilient, loyal and hopeful for the next game, the owners and players need to do more to earn the continued support of the fans. I hope this message reaches the Nationals' management and inspires them to put on a better show for the fans or pay the price of refunding the inflated ticket prices paid by the fans.