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A Nationals Parade

By Matt's Bats on November 4, 2019

As sports fans, we wait our entire lives to see moments like what happened Saturday afternoon in Washington. We dream of one day seeing our favorite athletes hoist the championship trophy in their hometown, overlooking thousands upon thousands of screaming fans, as drunk from celebration as could possibly be. For fans in cities like Boston, San Francisco, and Chicago, these types of celebration have been commonplace in the past decade. Last year, the Washington Capitals brought us Washingtonians our first taste of this championship glory. Earlier in October, we saw the Washington Mystics win their title. For me and for many other fans, however, the parade and rally of the Nationals’ World Series championship was the sweetest of them all. Savor the moment, Washington. The Nationals did it.

I got to the parade area at around 9:30 am. I staked out a spot around the intersection of Pennsylvania Avenue and Constitution Avenue, and waited. I had the opportunity to talk to two fellow fans who were waiting there early to grab a good spot.

Arguably the Nationals fan who went the most “viral” on social media after the championship was Jason Turner. He was at the watch party at Nationals Park during Game 7, and once Daniel Hudson struck out Michael Brantley to secure the World Series, Turner took off his shirt and slid on top of the wet Nationals dugout. When offering his rationale behind what happened in that moment, Turner said that “as D.C. sports fans, we don’t win that often, but when we win, we party.”

The parade and championship also meant a lot to Louis Hoffman, who has been a D.C. baseball fan since he was a boy. He remembers watching the “old Senators with players like Frank Howard and Aurelio Rodriguez” and the Senators having no shot at winning the World Series. But Hoffman realizes how special this moment is. “Some people go their whole life and never have their team win the World Series. But for me, I’ve been waiting 57 years for this, and it means the world to me.”

Gerardo Parra shows his favorite toy to the crowd

The parade started with much fanfare. The players rode in double-decker sightseeing buses, and the first one to pass by featured Gerardo Parra (and his baby shark toy) and Adam Eaton. Everyone around serenaded Parra with the Baby Shark dance. The next bus continued the dance (as Baby Shark was now playing from the speakers), which could be called “El Autobus Dominicano” and was populated by all of the Dominican

players on the team.

Mayor Bowser rode in her own bus with her staff (she threw me a stress ball!) and scholar-athletes from the Washington Nationals Youth Academy followed soon after. Sean Doolittle went down the parade route riding the bullpen cart, wielding a lightsaber, because Sean Doolittle is awesome. After a few DC area little league teams walked by, Howie Kendrick showed off the NLCS MVP trophy to the crowd. Pitching coach Paul Menhart rode with some of his pitchers, including World Series MVP Stephen Strasburg (who did not carry his hardware for the crowd).

The highlight, though, was when the trophy went by. It was hard not to get a little emotional when Ryan Zimmerman, Dave Martinez, and Mike Rizzo went by with the World Series trophy. Confetti filled the air, and the cheers coming from the Nationals’ faithful was deafening. It realized the dream we’ve been living in the last few days; The Washington Nationals are World Series Champions.