Nats Win 3rd Division Title Within 5 Years: With 3 Different Managers

The Nats are going back to the playoffs!

On Saturday 24 September 2016 The Washington Nationals notched their 90 win of the season by beating the Pittsburgh Pirates. They were not quite in the playoffs yet, their magic number was down to 1, but only for about a half-hour. The 2nd place team the New York Mets last year's NL East Division Champs were still playing their game with the Philadelphia Phillies. The Mets were behind but were rallying for a comeback. They didn't succeed and so the Nationals celebrated their Division Championship Clinch, in the visitors locker room at PNC Park in Pittsburgh.

Hard to believe someone got them to stand still long enough for a group photo.

One again Bryce Harper wears interesting headgear for the celebrating. This year it was a Katie Ledecky USA Olympics Swim cap.

Sort of a repeat of the 2014 Division Clinch in Atlanta.

Harper's Headgear of choice was a Fire Fighter's Helmet.

The 2012 Celebration started an odd even year tradition in the Nation's Capital. Harper went with the standard backwards commemorative "Playoffs" hat like the rest of the team. He hadn't started his unique stylized trend yet.

When they won the division in 2012 it was the first time since 1933 a Washington Baseball team had been to the playoffs. The Nationals have won the NL East Division three times in the last five years.That is a mighty impressive achievement, although what makes it even more impressive is that they have done it with three different skippers at the helm. Davey Johnson, Matt Williams and Dusty Baker. Both Johnson and Williams won NL Manager of the Year the year they took the Nats into the Playoffs.

 2012 the salty dog Davey Johnson led the Nats to the stromy NLDS seas:

1975 Topps Baseball 57 Dave Johnson Braves

2014 saw the good ship Nationals sail into the rough seas of the playoffs with Matt Williams:

 1995 Fleer Ultra Baseball 247 Matt Williams Giants

This year 2016 the Captain at the helm is Dusty Baker:

 1981 Fleer Baseball 115 Dusty Baker Dodgers

The Nats need to start playing like they want to go deep into the playoffs. As of this posting there are four games left in the regular season and the Nats are only at 92-66. In 2012 they went 98-64 in the regular season and lost the NLDS 3-2 vs The Cardinals. 2014 they went 96-66 regular season and fell in the NLDS 3-1 vs The Giants.

This year even though they have the division they seem to have spun around and are backing into the playoffs. NOT GOOD. At least the other two times they seemed to be going forward into the post season.

Related Links:
CSN MidAtlantic - WASHINGTON NATIONALS CELEBRATE NL EAST TITLE

ESPN - Nationals clinch NL East -- now comes the hard part

ESPN (another blog post) - Another even year, another NL East title for Nationals
MLB - Nats jump on Bucs, wait out Mets, clinch NL East

USA Today - Nationals clinch NL East title with win and Mets loss

Washington Post - Nationals clinch third NL East title with win over Pirates, Mets’ loss to Phillies

Curly Clinch 2014 Edition

CONGRATULATIONS WASHINGTON NATIONALS

Clinch NL East PLAYOFFS BOUND!

The Nationals clinched 1st place in the NL East insuring a playoff birth by beating the Atlanta Braves in Atlanta by a score of 3-0. Step one complete clinching a playoff birth. Getting the Division Lead helps make it easier but we know is not necessary to get there. There will be two teams that squeak into the playoffs and duke it out in the wild-card play-in game. The team is now on the Playoffs Parkway. Heading the opposite direction is the Baltimore Orioles from the AL East on-ramp.

There are many people in the organization that have contributed to this. One man who has played a big role is skipper Matt Williams

CONGRATS AND GO NATS!

It's Curly W Cards 2nd Blogiversary!

It was 2 years ago today that I started this my third blog (2nd card blog) that concentrates on my Homie Baseball Team the WASHINGTON NATIONALS as they prepare to start their 10th Season. At the time I started I wanted to have my blog posts about My Homie team separate from my main trading card blog. I had noticed there were several blogs about the Nationals and there were several card bloggers who collected either the team or individual players but there was no card blog specifically dedicated to The Nationals (at least not a currently active blog). It is both interesting and a little ironic that the year I decided to start this blog was the year the Nats finished in 1st place in the Division and made their first ever Playoffs birth as the Washington Nationals. Hopefully it is not their last.

For laughs you can read my First Curly W post (which is also my Welcome Page) Skipping ahead a year here is last year's 1st anniversary post.

As with my other blogs I hope that as this one goes on I improve the quality of the posts with each passing year. Sometimes I think it does improve with each post, other times I think it just gets stale and becomes uninteresting until I show a cool card...

Hmmm speaking of showing cool cards... Oh I haven't gotten around to showing this card yet. I keep meaning to do a Cury W Version of this cool early 1990s set.

 1994 Ted Williams Baseball 90 Eddie Yost Senators

(Front and Back)

Since I first laid eyes on the Frank Howard card from this set I fell in love with it. Since I was mainly on hiatus from active card collecting in the early 1990s I missed the boat on the Ted Williams Card Company. I think I had heard of it when it first started up but I'm not sure. At any rate I am currently trying to complete both the 1993 and 1994 sets.

Here is the current count for my progress on the Ted Williams Sets:

1993 Ted Williams:
Base: 1, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 27, 28, 29, 31, 32, 33, 34, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 47, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 55, 56, 57, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 68, 69, 71, 73, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 83, 84, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 123, 126, 127, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 142, 148, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159,
Brooks Robinson: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
Roberto Clemente: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

1994 Ted Williams:
Base: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 13, 17, 23, 25, 27, 36, 37, 50, 60, 62, 63, 64, 73, 74, 102, 104, 106, 107, 108, 109, 111, 112, 113, 114, 117, 121, 127, 130, 131, 135, 136, 137, 139, 141, 143, 147, 153
500 Club: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

As you can see I have made more progress on the 1994 set that is due to starting with it and also a Generous Random Act of Cardness or two.

I try to keep my Master Want List up-to-date. As time goes on it will be more current than this anniversary post listing.

New Nats Skipper Matt Williams pitching during Spring Training 2014.

Maybe he thinks the quality of this blog is going down hill?

Da New Skipper

Matt Williams The New Manager Carded

Image from www.veooz.com

Number 9 is a good number for Washington Sports

I haven't looked through my collection that thoroughly enough but in a recent pack opening of a repack I got a Matt Williams card from his playing days. I probably have a few other of his cards* but I'll have to check my 1980s and up cards carefully to double check. Anyway here is my one verified Matt Williams card:

2000 Fleer Tradition 40 Matt Willaims Diamondbacks

(Front and Back)

I am sure I will soon be finding more cards of his to add to my collection, including newly released ones of him as the Nats Skipper. Welcome aboard Mr. Williams.

In case you were wondering about my number 9 comment:

*UPDATE:  According to my Zistle I have a total of 8 of Matt's cards, all but this one during his Giants years. I'll need to dig them out an scan them for this blog. Including his 1987 Topps Traded RC (That I know for a fact I have, since I have all the 1980s Topps Traded sets).