In Washington, the winds blow left and right, and the air is so thick with political rhetoric during the summer, that ball clubs centered on the home run are bound to run into problems, even when the Washington Nationals themselves present next to none on the field.
Alright. Lest I lose my credibility right off the bat, I'll say there is little wind during the middle months in the nation's capital, and the humid air is oppressive, if not exactly thick. But ballpark specifications at RFK Stadium, once the subject of lowballing, offer one of the last places you want to be in July to see a slow trot around the bases. In other words, this is not the Milwaukee Brewers' kind of park.
Nevertheless, this is where I learned the Brewers' Ryan Braun is going to be a special Major League Baseball player.
On field level about an hour before the first pitch between Milwaukee and Washington, Braun was taking batting practice and spraying balls all over the field - over the wall, to say it more precisely.
By this point, the 23-year-old had been out of the minor leagues for little over a month, yet he had already made an impression. With eight home runs and a nearly .340 batting average, he was just starting to gain attention in baseball circles.
And if that hadn't happened yet, he started that Friday night.
In the first inning, he hit one out to the power alley in left center - the same part of RFK where two skeptical Washington Post writers in 2005 found that officials had miscalculated the distance to the wall by some 14 feet. That area of the field is listed at 385 feet. Who knows how far that ball really flew.
In the fifth inning, then, Braun took the same pitcher to the opposite field, giving him 10 long balls in only 38 games and a preview of what was to come as the Brewers chased in vain a NL Central Division title.
What the Brewers do carry into next season is a duly acknowledged National League Rookie of the Year.
By the slimmest of margins earlier this week, the 32 voters - two writers from each of the league's cities, awarded Braun with the distinction by two votes over Colorado shortstop Troy Tulowitzki, who, on a side note, played in the World Series.
I knew Troy had a phenomenal year and helped get his team to the post-season,"" Braun said in a conference call with baseball writers the day the honor was announced. ""I knew that would factor in. I figured it would be close. I had no idea if I would win.""
By any standard, Braun is a young player, but he knows the team's standing plays a role in selecting the winner. It says a lot that he still came out on top despite his team's shortcoming this season. The Brewers did, after all, spend practically the whole season in first place.
Their well-documented fall to the Cubs was in no part owing to the player over at third base. Braun did in fact have 26 errors in 112 games this year and finished with a .895 fielding percentage, lowest in the majors at that position in 14 years. Writers must have known, still, that it was an extremely rare occasion when one of those miscues influenced the outcome of a game.
It was Braun's .324 average, 34 home runs, 66 extra-base hits and all-time rookie best slugging percentage that gave him an edge - numbers that he put up playing in only 113 games to Tulowitzki's 155. Given a full season, Braun's numbers would have far and away outpaced the runner-up, who, let's not forget, played half his games in baseball's version of the Kennedy Space Center.
In the meantime, Braun was parking balls out of RFK. By the way, the night after his two-homer outburst, he took a pitch in his first at-bat deep into the upper-deck.
If you would like to help Jon try to track how far Braun's first home run ball went, or help Braun himself park balls at RFK, e-mail Jon at bortin@wisc.edu.
