Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader didn’t stay up to watch all of the Washington Nationals at Colorado Rockies game last night. It was rain delayed and your Maximum Leader decided to just turn in and get a little extra shut-eye. Sadly he should have stayed up to watch the Nats put the 14-6 smackdown on the Rockies.

Last night’s win is one of those wins when you wish you could have a “run bank” and “bank” some of those runs you scored last night for a night when you can’t buy a run (and those nights happen in Baseball).

If the Nats continue to play well this season, and your Maximum Leader certainly hopes they will, will they still be called the “Natinals” by Neil Everett on SportsCenter? Your Maximum Leader wonders…

Your Maximum Leader has been getting some pressure from his offspring to become a “citizen of Natstown.” For those of you not in the area, “Natstown” is the fan-club component of the current Nationals marketing campaign. The team started to use the name last season when club VP Stan Kasten was referred to as the “Mayor of Natstown” during a press conference. The marketing campaign is working on the younger fans of the club apparently. The Wee Villain (aged 5) announced last year one time that he “wanted to go to Natstown” because “you can do whatever you want there.” To him Nats Park is a magical place where you can watch baseball, play video games, romp on a big playground, eat half-smokes, drink soda and eat ice-cream out of a little batting helmet. Obviously he doesn’t play close attention to his dad who shucks out all the money required to “do whatever” at Nats Park.

Anyhoo…

Villainette #2 sees the ads on TV during games entreating TV viewers to become a citizen of Natstown. She has asked many times that your Maximum Leader find out what it takes to be a citizen of Natstown. Your Maximum Leader’s exhortations that watching the team religiously and going to a number of games every year and buying t-shirts and stuff is certainly enough to be a citizen of Natstown. Villainette #2 wasn’t buying what he was selling however, so your Maximum Leader looked up what it actually takes to be a citizen. Here is the join Natstown page on the Nationals web page. As best your Maximum Leader can tell, to become a citizen of Natstown you give the team $19.95 and in return they give you some special web privleges, a single Thursday night game ticket, access to MLB Game Day (audio streaming of all MLB games to your PC) and some discounts at the team store. You also get a citizenship card.

No decoder ring? Harumph…

Your Maximum Leader doesn’t see how all that is worth $19.95. Sure the regular retail price of MLB Game Day by itself is $19.95, but your Maximum Leader already gets all the games on TV. He doesn’t get the games on radio.

(NB to Nationals management: What the hell is up with radio broadcast of the games by the way? You are on 1500AM and the signal strength of that station is crap. Your Maximum Leader can barely pick it up when he is in the Villainmobile and physically in DC! The signal starts to break up by the time on hits the Beltway! So down here in Fredericksburg your Maximum Leader is pretty much screwed in terms of picking up the games on radio. What makes this worse is that on some nights he can actually get a clear signal on the AM stations in New York City and Boston that broadcast the Yankees and Red Sawx games! That is pitiful. Please do something to get a better signal for the Nationals radio broadcasts. How about trying to do a deal with 106.7 FM. They are currently on an all sports-talk format - which really means all Redskins all the time. Perhaps putting some real games on the FM radio might be a good start.)

Your Maximum Leader doesn’t see the value of the Natstown membership. If he listened to more out-of-market games on the radio and knew that he could get away by himself to go to the Thursday night game it might be worth it. As it stands the $19.95 only gets you 1 ticket to the game (and a single ticket for a stadium tour). The game ticket value is $20 by the way.

Now… If the Nationals were to offer a “family” membership to Natstown your Maximum Leader might be more interested. He would be willing to pay up to $50 for a family membership with up to 4 tickets included. (Your Maximum Leader would still have to buy one more ticket to cover the whole family, but he understands that…)

So, your Maximum Leader will have to keep up the party line that as far as he’s concerned, we are already citizens of Natstown, even if we don’t have a laminated card…

Carry on.