Washington GM Jim Bowden has his own transition going on in the Capital. His ambitious trade with the Marlins stoked a DC hot stove that had been stone cold. Change is the watchword in Washington these days and it could be washing over the baseball fortunes of the Nationals.

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Baseball is a $6 billion dollar business that has boomed during the reign of current Commissioner Bud Selig. How will the deepening recession impact the blossoming prosperity of the sport? Will it undermine the current state of labor and ownership harmony? Will marginal franchises fail?

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Philadelphia Phillies: Winning a World Series in a beautiful new ballpark, what’s not to like. Maybe the ratings or the weather, or Charlie Manuel’s mug. But he won it all with a powerful lineup, a great bullpen and Cole Hamels’ strong arm; and was feted with a ticker tape parade for his trouble.

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“My students will slog through the toughest micro-economic theorem if I teach it in terms of baseball economics,” says the chair of the economics department at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, JoBeth Mertens.

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Opening Day for the 2008 MLB season showcased the Nationals’ new stadium, but who knew that Ryan Zimmerman’s walk off homerun to win that game would be the high point of a very long season in DC.

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In the coming weeks, one of the best stories to emerge from Tampa Bay will be that of Joe Maddon, the quiet, bespectacled professor.

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The sun may be fading in Tampa, but when the newly minted Rays began their surprising run earlier this season, smart fans in Washington paid heed.

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Bad boy behavior disappeared as an issue in Washington with the departure of Jose Guillen whose tempestuous relationship with Frank Robinson and Brad Wilkerson became grounds for divorce in 2006. Guillen is a baseball archetype whose corrosive effects are tolerated only by teams in dire need of the talent they bring. Now GM Jim Bowden–who finds affinity with these players–has brought in Elijah Dukes to fill the role.

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For the ardent Nationals’ fan looking to tomorrow, it is an art form to cull among among the five tool phenoms that never make the show and the workaday players who squeeze out every drop of talent to become stars. Gauging the stars of the future is unlikely to ever become a science and certainly not something the scouts cannot predict. Which leaves the fan the incomparable joy of rooting for the ones who make it against all the odds, the ones who come out of nowhere like The Natural and leave everyone wondering how it ever came to be.

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Little sisters provide the best analysis of the guys that big sister is dating.  So too do the Nationals provide an accurate barometers of the wallop that contenders pack as they parade through town.  Some said that the Diamondbacks were saving their starters when Washington avoided Brandon Webb and Danny Haren two weeks ago, but it can be argued as easily that if your rotation is only two deep, maybe you don’t really have enough gas in the tank.

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As we searched for the Gate 2 entrance to queue up for the monument tour, a lonely crackpot stood with a sign, “Repent Now, There Is Only One Way.” As we walked past he yelled at any and all, “Only God can save you.” One of the three young Yankee fans in front of us asked his mates, “Yeah, but can God get the Yankees in the playoffs.”

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