Zephyrs offer distraction

The woeful, last-place Washington Nationals returned to RFK Stadium last night to begin a nine-game homestand in a town that, at this point of this dismal season, seems to have a lot more on its radar screen than baseball.

But down on the farm, or on the bayou, in this case in New Orleans, the Nationals’ Class AAA team expected a big crowd because on this day of the season, people there would rather have nothing else on their radar screen except baseball.

Yesterday was the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and its destruction of New Orleans, leveling an American city like at no other time in the nation’s history.

Residents there didn’t need an anniversary to remind them of the devastation. They drive by the piles of debris, see the billboards advertising cleanup services still in demand and tell old and new horror stories about the storm, the floods and the daily rebuilding process.

The sight of the devastation makes one believe that they will still have reminders all around them 10 years from now.

No, what people needed last night was a break from being reminded how much suffering has gone on and still goes on. They needed a baseball game, and the New Orleans Zephyrs, like they have all season, offered them a respite from the pain.

“People will be looking for something fun to do tonight,” Zephyrs general manager Mike Schline said.

The Zephyrs, who play in Metarie — just outside the New Orleans city limits near the airport in a stadium that served as a FEMA base of operations in the days after Katrina — are the only professional sports team that returned after Katrina and has played its entire home season. The Saints, who will be returning to the Superdome this season, played home games in Baton Rouge and San Antonio. The NBA Hornets played nearly all their home games in Oklahoma City. They came back to New Orleans for just a handful of games, but they pledge to eventually return.

The Zephyrs embraced their responsibility to the city this season, and attendance was expected to surpass last year’s total of about 330,000 with last night’s game, with six home games left. They have a chance for their first winning season since 2002.

“Everyone seems to have a special appreciation of the team this year,” Schline said. “And our players know what these people have been through. They take the time to sign autographs, make people smile and shake hands. They have a good understanding of what this city has been through and what they mean to these people.”

Nationals reliever Jason Bergmann spent much of this season with the Zephyrs, and said he sometimes felt they were doing more on the field than just playing a baseball game.

“Every once in a while someone would say thanks for everything, that it meant a lot to them to have baseball,” he said.

Before the season began, the Zephyrs took their players on a tour of the hard-hit areas of the city — which is most of the city — including the devastated Ninth Ward. Bergmann didn’t join the team until a week after the season, so he didn’t go on that tour. He didn’t know just how bad it was until he drove to Florida for a trip in July.

“I had put it off as long as I could,” Bergmann said. “I didn’t want to run down there and see how bad it was. So I stayed close to the stadium, where I lived, and didn’t really do too much. But I took a trip to Florida for a couple of days and drove through the Ninth Ward, and everything was destroyed. Houses are down, holes are everywhere, businesses are destroyed.”

Washington reliever Saul Rivera went on the tour before the season began in New Orleans, and, like most people who have seen it, he was shaken by it.

“It was bad,” Rivera said. “It was like there was a war there. It was good that we could maybe take their minds off the devastation. But it is hard to forget that. I will never forget what I saw.”

The Class AAA franchise, owned and operated by Don Beaver, didn’t ignore the devastation. Far from it. They worked with charities to help rebuild the Boys and Girls Club in the West Bank of New Orleans, and have had a number of nights dedicated to various rebuilding efforts, including one coming Friday night with Desire NOLA, to raise money for small businesses to get them back up and running. Players will be wearing special “Desire NOLA” jerseys, which will be auctioned after the game.

The Nationals do not have a long and rich tradition with the Zephyrs. In their final years in Montreal, the franchise’s Class AAA affiliation was Edmonton. They switched to New Orleans at the end of the 2004 season, and that two-year agreement is up at the end of this season. No one knows if the connection will continue.

“There have not been many discussions,” Schline said. “We are trying to get talks started, but it has been a slow process. We would like to sit down and talk about things. Overall, it has been a positive experience, but I am sure both sides have issues they want to talk about.”

It’s a tough spot for the new Lerner-Kasten Nationals ownership. There could be a series of moves that take place in the coming weeks among Class AAA teams that could open up an affiliate closer to Washington, and it’s no secret that either Richmond or Norfolk, if either opened up, would be very attractive to the Nationals from a marketing standpoint.

“Every year there are a number of affiliations that expire,” Nationals president Stan Kasten said. “We have a couple that are coming up this year. New Orleans is one of them. We are evaluating all of them, and that process really takes place over the next 30 days, the time of the year when teams look at their affiliations and determine if they want to stay where they are or move somewhere else.”

There is much more work to be done in New Orleans, and it would be nice if the Washington Nationals remained connected to that work.