Open Tryouts This Weekend for Travel Boys Baseball Team

The tryouts will be held in Riverdale on Friday, Saturday and Sunday at 6 p.m.

Experienced teen baseball players can try out for the Prince George’s County Baseball Alliance's summer league. The alliance will be holding tryouts this weekend starting Friday evening at 6 p.m. at at Riverdale Park Field #1 (5400 Haig Drive, Riverdale, MD, 20737) Teens should be ages 13 to 18, experienced and looking for more opportunities to play and hone their skills.  No cost is associated with the tryouts and reservations are not needed. If there is inclement weather call 301-927-0822 for information. For additional information about the Summer Travel Baseball League Tryouts, contact Byron Thompson at 301-446-6800; Byron.Thompson@pgparks.com or contact Sean O’Connor at demanthabaseball@gmail.com. Sign up for classes and activities at…

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Editor's Notebook

Hoover's Opossum Brings Luck to Hyattsville Baseball Team

Before the Wildcats or Stags, Hyattsville high school athletes were represented by a live opossum mascot. In 1929 they lost it. Luckily, President Hoover had an extra one.

84 years ago, sometime in May 1929, the old Hyattsville High School baseball team lost their beloved opossum mascot. This was not good news for the squad, which was hoping to rely on their mascot for good luck as they headed into the county championships.  They had a right to be nervous too. All year long their original possum mascot had, according to contemporary press reports, brought the Hyattsville High School athletic association an apparent bounty of victories. The 1928-1929 school year saw Hyattsville High School athletes claim repeat victories in county soccer, basketball and track and field championships by the time prep-baseball post-season arrived. But luckily, President Herbert Hoover, known as one of the more prolific pet-…

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Is It Time to Wave “Bye-Bye” to the Wave at Baseball Games?

One Nationals fan is leading the charge to eliminate the organized cheer.

Fans standing up in unison in their section, raising their arms up over their heads, then sitting down again. Then the next section, and the next, until every section of the stadium has done it in order. We’re talking, of course about the ubiquitous interactive fan cheer, the Wave. You either love it or hate it. At nearby Nationals Stadium, a dedicated campaign to end the Wave is gaining more power than Bryce Harper’s bat. Last September, in speaking with Washington Post writer Sarah Kogod, Nats fan Ryan Mattheus called the Wave “the worst thing in sports. Sit down and watch the game....The thing about it is, you should be into what’s going on on the field, not what’s going on in the stands. It takes away from the game. I definitely …

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Nationals Announce Taft as New Presidential Mascot

The Washington Nationals announced Friday on Twitter that a new presidential mascot would join George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt for the 2013 baseball season.

Looks like it'll be harder for Teddy to win the Nationals Presidential Mascot race, now that the Nationals announced Friday that they would be adding a fifth president to the race: William Howard Taft, Politco reported. According to the Let Teddy Win blog, "Bill" as he'll be known during the race had a 35-to-1 chance to be the new mascot. John F. Kennedy was the favorite, the blog reported. Bill will take on his predecessor, Teddy, every fourth-inning race when the Washington-based baseball team plays at home, but hopefully will have better results. Last October, after losing more than 500 times, Teddy won a race, according to NPR. Bill even tweeted at Teddy on Jan. 26: Listen up, @teddy26nats - we've run against each other in the past, …

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Washington Nationals and Baltimore Orioles Playoff Ticket Pricing

Third-party tickets can be as much as $30,000.

  The Washington Nationals and Baltimore Orioles have both secured playoff spots, which means there will be October (and maybe November) baseball in the area. If you are not a season ticket holder, or weren’t lucky enough to purchase playoff pre-sale tickets from the individual teams, you will probably have to go to a secondary ticket company, Craigslist or other places. What can you expect to pay for playoff tickets? Let’s compare regular season and post-season baseball ticket prices:   Team Regular Season Ticket Price Range Post-Season Ticket Price Range, Team Website Post-Season Ticket Price Range, Third-Party Website Baltimore Orioles $15 - $48 $20 - $100 (Wild Card/Division Series) $40 - $175 (League Championship Series) $70 - $305 (…

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Playoff Schedule Set for Nationals, Orioles

Baseball's postseason kicks off this weekend.

Major League Baseball's 2012 regular season is officially in the books, and for the first time ever, the Washington Nationals and the Baltimore Orioles are both in the playoffs. The Nats wrapped up the top seed in the National League yesterday with a 5-1 win over the Philadelphia Phillies, taking them to 98-64 on the season. They'll go on the road Sunday to face the winner of Friday's one-game wild card playoff between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Atlanta Braves. The best-of-five National League Division Series will then come to Washington Wednesday for one to three games, depending on how many wins each team racks up. The winner of that round will face the winner of San Francisco and Cincinnati for a World Series berth. The O's, …

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Marty Chase

12:41 pm on Thursday, October 4, 2012

This crazy format is for this year only and puts the Nats at a disadvantage. Let's hope they don't lose the first two on the road. That'll make it very tough to comeback, even with three straight at home.   more ›

Nats, O's Clinch Playoff Spots—Could a Beltway Series Be Brewing?

There's plenty of baseball yet to be played, but for the first time ever, a Nationals-Orioles World Series is a real possibility.

It's been 15 years since the Baltimore-Washington area fielded a Major League Baseball team with a winning record, let alone sent one to the postseason.  But as of the final out in last night's Rangers-Angels game, the Orioles—improbably, unfathomably—became the second playoff-bound ballclub in the corridor, clinching at least a wild card spot for the first time this century. Their 6-3 win over Boston earlier in the day also kept the O's tied with the New York Yankees for first place in the American League East. The Nationals' shining moment came 10 days earlier as Washington closed the deal on a postseason berth with a 4-1 win over the Los Angeles Dodgers. This year marks just the second time the organization has made the playoffs and its…

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POLL: Are Kids Getting Priced Out of Baseball and Softball?

A NY Times article explores the era of the $250 baseball bat

Have you bought a baseball glove for your little leaguer lately? Did you pay more than $100 for it? How about $250 for a bat? A New York Times story headlined "Big Price Tags Attached to Even the Littlest Leagues," looks at the big business of equipping youngsters for participation in youth baseball and softball leagues, quoting those costs and more. "A batting helmet protects tiny heads for $39.99," the Times reports. "A pair of Nike Jordan Black Cat cleats will make your child fast and fashionable at $51.99 until he or she outgrows them." So what do you think? Has the cost of bats and gloves taken kids too far from the simpler days of sandlot and playground ballgames? Or have you had better luck finding more modestly-priced equipment for…

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PHOTO GALLERY: Vintage Baseball In The Park

In celeration of Hyattsville's 125th birthday the Potomac Nine of Washington, D.C. and the Cecil Base Ball Club of Chesapeake City played a double header of 19th Century baseball at Magruder Park.

Since its founding, Hyattsville has knocked a few out of the park in terms of things like development, arts and super sleuth policing.  In celeration of the city's 125th birthday the Potomac Nine of Washington, D.C. and the Cecil Base Ball Club of Chesapeake City played a double header Sunday at Magruder Park. Here are some photographs of the event. The free event was offered by the City of Hyattsville, the Anacostia Trails Heritage Area, Chesapeake and Potomac Base Ball Club and the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission.

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PHOTO OF THE DAY: A Bright Future

Here's a photo of one of Northwestern High School's 2011 seniors with her class T-shirt.

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