Census Bureau, Meet the Elias Sports Bureau

Originally Printed/Posted in the Washington City Paper on September 28, 2012: 
Get on the Nats Bandwagon! 

With a field measuring more than 100,000 square feet and only 10 to 13 players on the diamond at one time, baseball is the sprawliest of all major sports, befitting of America’s pastime. Yet paradoxically, almost one-third of all World Series games have been won by a team from our densest urban area, New York City. That feat looks slightly less impressive when you consider that the city’s home teams account for 266 (12 percent) of all 2,244 seasons ever played—not to mention their payrolls. (Why 2,244 seasons? One season for each year each team has been in the majors.)

Relative to the number of baseball seasons played in each city, New York, Miami, and Oakland are the most decorated. In comparison, with 76 seasons under its belt and only one championship to show for it, the District of Columbia is, historically, a baseball underachiever.

Regardless of how the Nats perform over the coming months, there is at least one fact in which District residents can take immediate pride. According to Baseball-Almanac.com, the D.C. area has midwived more pro ball players per capita over the course of MLB history than any other U.S. state or foreign nation, easily outpacing its closest competitors in Pennsylvania, the Virgin Islands, Massachusetts, Missouri, and Curacao. Pop Snyder, Lu Blue, Red Webb, and Frank Funk? All native Washingtonians!