Immediately after opening the closet to put away my coat this morning I realized I had made a terrible oversight.

A week ago I did a post about the newest bat in my life and took the opportunity to recount tales of the other bats I’ve owned.  But there, in the back of the closet, the overlooked bat stared at me with baleful eyes wanting to know why it had been left out.

I’m sorry.  I really am.  You, giant red whiffle bat, have always been my favorite.

I got this bat at a Salvation Army store in roughly 1996.  It was in a giant bin of its brethren with an amazing price tag of 25 cents.  What could be more perfect for a kid who played an insane amount of backyard baseball games with siblings and friends?

We tried out a million different balls with this bat, trying to find the right combination for our yard.  Something too light like the foam tennis balls we had didn’t produce a satisfying hitting experience.  Too heavy, like a real tennis ball, and we risked the combination of hitting the ball too far into the neighbor’s yard (and/or their house) as well as breaking the bat itself.

As you can see from the duct tape in the first picture, the trial-and-error process had one important casualty:

I believe this is the second generation of duct tape holding the cracked plastic together.  It works just fine in this state, and can even produce some interesting effects you don’t get with a perfect round, smooth bat.

Eventually my younger brother and I discovered the perfect ball for our two-man game, which involved the batter getting to hit until the pitcher was able to catch a pop fly.  The answer was a mini inflatable volleyball, which when CRUSHED traveled 10 feet past the property line and was easy enough to snag with bare hands.

I also made an oversight in my January 11 post about sledding.

Former roommate MR pointed out that I neglected to mention the awesome sledding spot neighborhood kids utilized at the now-old Redskins practice site behind our neighborhood.

This was a place we reserved for really good snows because it involved a bit of a trek to get to, which is not ideal when you get to the point of being cold and want to get inside as soon as possible.

We had to go allll the way down our street, through a big backyard, into the woods, over (and hopefully not through) a creek, scramble up a sometimes muddy hill with the aid of tree roots and finally down and up a drainage ditch to reach the sledding start.

The great thing about the ditch was its steep angle, meaning you could build the smallest of jumps and let let the angle create one that seemed much bigger.  A tiny bit of speed made for some epic runs and even more incredible crash landings.  Looking back it’s a bit of a wonder no one got hurt either with the simple impact or the occasional crash into the exposed top of a rock at the bottom.

And now that I’m picturing this all again I’m remembering some blizzard that brought in plows to the parking lot behind the ditch, creating those huge walls of snow you see in a storm that size.  For us that meant a starting ramp 10 feet above where we were used to, and thus more speed than we could ever imagine on those sleds.

Kid snow days were so much cooler.

A magical delivery came to my door this week, brightening these cold, dark days with the promise of spring:

Our work softball league requires guys to use wooden bats, and although I had a great season with our team’s bats last year, I wanted one that was a tiny bit heavier.  Plus this one has my name and an American flag on it.  I want to carry it around everywhere I go:

April can’t get here soon enough.

This is the fourth bat I’ve owned during my time on this great planet.  Before this, the last time I got one I believe was way back at age 14.

I can’t off the top of my head remember a picture from the very beginning, but this one from when I was 15 is pretty close:

A photo posted by Chris Hannas (@cjhannas) on Jul 17, 2014 at 6:31am PDT

Today that bat can be found in the trunk of my car, because who knows when you’ll end up at the batting cages?

Top memory of this bat: hitting a home run in three consecutive games.

Top memory of the bat that came before this one: hitting a game-winning grand slam for my summer all-star team.

I was 12, and we were playing in a tournament down in Staunton, Va.  Trailing by three runs in the bottom of the 5th inning, my coach sent me up to pinch hit.  There were two outs, and with a full count the pitcher threw a curveball down and in.  I golfed it over the right field fence — my first ever home run — giving us a one-run lead.

My teammates were pretty psyched:

You can see the bat in that first picture, next to the catcher (fun fact: I can still fit in the jersey).  Better look at the bat in action here:

I’ll leave you with this, which I’ve posted before, but saw when looking up these videos and it’s just too excellent not to watch again:

Last night I texted my mom some disappointing news: Tyler Clippard, her favorite Nationals player, had just been traded to Oakland.  Her response involved emojis with tears.

Once news of the trade broke, it was the only topic of conversation among the Nats Twitter community where I regularly converse with a bunch of fellow fans.  But as we all made sense of the deal and shared memories of Clippard, an interesting pattern emerged.  My mom was not the only Nats fan mom who counted him as her favorite.

Mom with Clippard warming up before a game in 2013

One fan told me her soon-to-be 87-year-old mom was “crushed” when she broke the news to her, and that her mom may be writing a letter of protest.

A Nats Twitter friend said of his mom, “Mine cried…still might be.”

Another friend said she herself is the mom in this situation, and dreaded telling her two daughters about one of their favorites leaving when they woke up this morning (the account she later posted of that process was very sad).

All of this made me wonder, who is the equivalent guy on the other Major League teams?  Fortunately baseball Twitter people are awesome, and after scrolling through my list to find fans of other teams I had some quick answers.

Royals:

@cjhannas oh Eric Hosmer, for sure.
— William Gallo (@GalloVOA) January 15, 2015

Pirates:

@cjhannas Neil Walker. As my mom would say, “he’s dreamy.”
— T (@taralumarie) January 15, 2015

Mariners:

@cjhannas but in the past a lot of people liked Raul Ibanez each and every time he was on the M’s (my mom loved him!)
— Tova Perlow (@DugoutDiva) January 15, 2015

Phillies:

@cjhannas Hamels!! The Moms? him
— Laura_B (@lb_423) January 15, 2015

Cardinals:

@cjhannas: Hmmm…moms? Well Yadi’s the most popular overall. But I would say moms are particularly fond of Matheny.
— Kelsey Shea Weinrich (@kelseyshea11) January 15, 2015

Orioles:

.@cjhannas Nick Markakis. But now he’s a Brave. I’m going to go JJ Hardy
— j money ham (@jfmonahan) January 15, 2015

Rangers:

@cjhannas Michael Young?
— Mina Park (@minapark) January 15, 2015

Brewers (Jonathan Lucroy):

@cjhannas @vodkalemonades @ktek7 LUUUUUUUUUUC
— Kristin (@10iskristin) January 15, 2015

There’s definitely a certain look that’s common among this group.  You could plausibly convince me that Walker, Hamels, Matheny, Hardy, Young and Lucroy are all cousins.  

And although I don’t know any Twins fans, discussions with the Royals fan Bill brought up the guy who may be the ultimate active mom fan favorite: Joe Mauer.  He’s one of the “cousins” too.

So long, Tyler, it’s been a real treat.

Early this morning (Washington time), the Adelaide Bite lost to the Perth Heat 6-0 in the first of their four-game series in the Australian Baseball League.

Why is this important?  Because with a sudden hole in my baseball life thanks to the end of the Major League season I have adopted Adelaide as my team to follow throughout the cold North American winter.

The main reason I chose them is their city has a fun nickname, rAdelaide, plus the starting pitcher today was a guy named Matt Williams, which just happens to be the same as the manager of my beloved Washington Nationals.

To add to my pain this morning, my desk neighbor at work (is that a thing?) is coping with the World Series loss of his beloved Kansas City Royals by following the Perth squad.  He was quite pleased with their resounding victory.

The league is pretty interesting compared to what we’re used to.  There are only six teams, and the atmosphere of their stadiums is akin to what you would expect for a A or AA team here. 

Our squads also have pretty legit corporate sponsorships that include patches on the jerseys and awkward mentions in game stories on their websites.

For example, Perth’s sponsor is “Alcohol. Think Again.”  Their deal includes all kinds of things from signs in the park encouraging responsible drinking, to limits on alcohol sales and even stipulations that lower-alcohol beverages be available at cheaper prices than their higher-content brethren.

In stories though, it’s beyond strange to see: “The Alcohol. Think Again Perth Heat played the Sydney Blue Sox in their third consecutive game…“

My team’s sponsor is easier to work in, but the lede to today’s story is downright amazing with the Perth sponsor in there:

“The Adelaide Bite, proudly presented by SA Power Networks went head to head against the Alcohol. Think Again Perth Heat in game one of their four game series at Norwood Oval…“

At the rAdelaide park, they seem to be a bit less concerned about alcohol consumption, offering $5 beer specials.  But unlike such promotions at MLB stadiums, you can only get the cheaper drinks until the end of the first inning, so arrive early.

A few more 6-0 shutouts and they may need to stretch that to the third or fourth inning in order for Bite fans to cope.  But I’m confident they will bounce back and make a run at the Claxton Shield, which is pretty epic.

I’m sitting on the couch watching the Washington Capitals.  I should be at Nationals Park watching game five of the National League Division Series.

That’s not just wistful thinking, it’s math or fate or some combination of the two.

For three years the Nationals have been exactly .500 in games I’ve attended, going 7-7 in 2011, 10-10 in 2012 and 11-11 in 2013.  This year they finished the regular season 12-11 before losing two playoff games.

I was sure that at 12-13, they would win games three and four in the best-of-five series against the San Francisco Giants.  They had to.  We needed a game five win to get me back to .500.

But baseball, for all of its beauty, can be cruel.  And so here I am looking at guys skating around a sheet of ice rather than gliding across a diamond of grass and dirt, hoping to make good on the promise of what was a remarkably fun season.

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Twice we saw Stephen Strasburg strike out 11 batters (they were Padres in April, Phillies in June).

In May, Jayson Werth robbed a home run for the final out of a win over the Mets.  A few days later, Denard Span went 5-for-5 on his way to setting a new team record for hits in a season.

August was walk-off month.  Bryce Harper beat the Mets with a 13th-inning blast.  Adam LaRoche hit a homer in the 11th against the Diamondbacks for the Nats’ third-straight walk-off win.  We watched as they kept the party rolling with a walk-off on an error — the fifth walk-off in the span of six games and their 10th win in a row.

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September was even more special.  While the Nats cruised to a division championship, we witnessed a pitching performance that comes along once in a lifetime as Jordan Zimmermann threw a no-hitter against the Marlins.  In his next start, we cheered as he walked off the mound one out away from a complete game shutout in the playoffs.  We had no idea what heartbreak lay ahead.

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This year in addition to logging starting pitchers for each team I also kept track of which shirt I wore to each game.  I was hoping one would emerge as a truly lucky article of clothing, but that didn’t happen.  The only ones with winning records were my Harper jersey (4-3) and racing presidents shirt (1-0).

This one, however, may have to be retired:

The Nats went 1-4 when I wore that to the park.  So if you’re looking for a scapegoat for how things played out this year, blame it on the blue shirt.  Can’t wait until next season.

I’ve seen some pretty incredible things at Nationals Park, but few could ever top experiencing watching Jordan Zimmermann throw a no-hitter.

He’s long been my favorite pitcher to see in person, both because of the way he goes after hitters and how quickly he operates.  Today, his methodical mowing down of the Miami Marlins was so efficient that it wasn’t until the end of the 5th inning when I looked at the scoreboard to see how many pitches he had thrown that I even noticed he had yet to allow a hit.

The rest of the game was all about hoping the Nats scored more than one run and feeling my nerves building a Zimmermann notched each successive out.

That’s one of his pitches in the 8th inning, which he obviously made it through cleanly.  Fast-forward to him taking the mound in the 9th:

During the final inning I was thinking about how we hadn’t yet seen that one amazing play that seems to keep every no-hitter alive.  With two outs, Steven Souza Jr., a September call-up who spent most of the year tearing up AAA, gave us exactly that:

Clearly I helped by imploring him to “get iiiiiiit” in that video captured by my brother Pat.  Souza was pretty pumped:

Is there any other way to react when you save a no-hitter? http://t.co/8DMB2Zm9Y1
— MLB GIFS (@MLBGIFs) September 28, 2014

Zimmermann went through the full range of emotions during that play, appearing to feel like his no-hit bid was over to celebrating a euphoric end to the regular season with his teammates:

Let’s hope the magic keeps going when the playoffs start on Friday!

Three years after a Metro train breakdown and a horde of Phillies fans prevented my brother and I from getting an Ian Desmond bobblehead, our lives are now complete.

In August 2011, we were on our way to Nationals Park when a train in front of us broke down and kept us sitting on the tracks for what seemed like an eternity.  By the time we got moving and made it to the stadium, all we saw were other people — many of them Phillies fans — carrying around bobble boxes.

I wondered back then why opposing fans would even want them, especially since at the time Desmond wasn’t exactly a star player.

Thankfully this year’s Desmond bobblehead day was on a Thursday instead of a Saturday, and there were 25,000 of them instead of 15,000.  Plus it was a 4:05 game so it was easy for us to get there before most normal folks.

Now my Nats bobble collection includes Ryan Zimmerman, Stephen Strasburg, Wilson Ramos and Mr. Desmond:

Oh and the Nats won their 10th consecutive game.  It was their fifth walk-off win in six games.  Life is good.