Center Field of (bad) Dreams

Center field in Nationals Park can be a tough place to play, especially given that half the time that you are playing there, you are on the Nationals. There hasn’t been a tougher week out there than this one. The area historically roamed by the likes of Nook Logan, Lastings Milledge and Elijah Dukes was actually home to some bad baseball this week.


Let’s start with pro-hockey-player-turned-Clinton-Portis-enthusiast Nyjer “Plush Mode” Morgan. Plush is just milling about in center field, minding his owns, when Baltimore’s Adam Jones smacks one back to the track. You can imagine Nyj’s surprise; I mean, the Orioles aren’t even part of the National League! What are they doing here? Did they just show up on their bicycles and issue a challenge?

So T-Plush races back, hurls himself at the wall and makes a terrific…contact with the ball, which bounces off his glove, and to be fair, turns invisible and lands beside him, still in play. Morgan looks up in the air, determines that no, the ball isn’t still up there, and promptly throws his glove down violently. He used to play hockey, perhaps he was challenging the ball to a fight? While Morgan is standing around in Level One Sulk Tantrum Mode, Josh Willingham literally screams in from right field, picks up the ball and gets it in. All the while, Adam Jones, fully aware that it’s his thirtieth anniversary, has been running around the power pellets like Pinky’s chasing him. Jones scores and is inexplicably awarded an inside-the-park home run.



Of course, after the game Morgan explained that he thought he had propelled the ball over the fence with his fielding gaffe, and that he never would have thrown such a fit if he’d known the ball was still in play. Nonetheless, this isn’t the first time that Morgan’s fielding has come under scrutiny, so naturally Nationals ownership started to consider another option.

Unfortunately for Nationals ownership, that other option was Nationals ownership. Principal owner Mark Lerner decided to take some reps in center. A couple towering fly balls later, and something suddenly came up. Now he’ll never be a teen model! Seriously, Lerner got rocked square in the snot-box by a fungo shot and broke his nose. An unnamed National was quoted as saying "I've never seen blood gush that fast out of someone.” Video of the incident has not yet been located, although a reenactment has been filmed and is available here.

So is center field built on an old Indian burial ground? Will Nyjer Morgan try to stab a baseball with his skate? Will Mark Lerner stay in the owner’s box and leave the bad fielding to the players he underpays? These questions and more, on next week’s NAAAAAAATIONALS UUUUUUUUPDAAAAAAAATE!