(Home) Promo Schedule Released

Collect all seventeen Chief Justice bobbleheads!

Nationals President Stan W. Kasten is a fast learner. Less than a year in Washington, and he already knows how to dump bad news on a Friday afternoon so it will be lost in the weekend media dead zone. What bad news? The 2007 Nationals Promotional Schedule (Home).

First off, it's pretty thin gruel as far as fan loot goes. The highlight of the year is the series of four bobbleheads ... of the Racing Presidents. Now, BallWonk loves America's presidents as much as the next guy. More, probably. Especially George Washington. Hail to the buff and blue! But it's not like we lack for actual bobblehead-worthy players. The Z-Man, Power Austin, and Officer Schneider are here to stay, right? Right? Oh, holy crap, BallWonk hadn't thought of that. Maybe there are no player bobbleheads because Stan the Plan is willing to trade anyone, at any time, even ...

Nah. Can't be. Still, has anyone really ever said to themselves, "Man, I wish I had some Thomas Jefferson merchandise"? Because if anyone ever has said that to himself, Monticello is right there in Virginia with a gift shop and everything.

Plus, most of the best promotions are on weekends or against teams like the Cubs or the Cardinals that everyone wants to see anyway (or on weekend games against in-demand teams). Wha?

The thing is, BallWonk actually prefers to see a lot of the teams nobody else cares about. Like the Padres and the Diamondbacks, or the entire rest of the NL Central other than the Cubbies and Redbirds. And when BallWonk goes to see the Nationals take on the Commies at RFK Canyon National Monument on a Wednesday night in August, he would very much like the front office's help in putting a few other fans' butts in the seats.

We need some t-shirts on that schedule, and bats for the kids. This being DC, there ought to be a tie night or some lapel pins or something. And if we're going to have that many plastic figurines, what about a little desktop model of RFK Canyon National Monument to commemorate the old park's last season? Or a little white upper-deack seat. Anything at all to honor the old park, which after all marks the passing of an era: It was the first, and still the least Brezhnevesque, of the quickly disappearing generation of concrete-doughnut ballparks.