Let’s Build a World Series Championship

        My favorite part of the Amy Poehler section is how she relates her experience with making Parks and Recreation into a hit TV show to Leslie Knope’s hard work and determination toward building her park. In the chapter “Let’s Build a Park” Poehler brings the show’s cocreator, Michael Schur, in to comment on some of the early ideas that went into the creation of the show. While explaining his hard work and dedication, Poehler explains that it is, “demonstrated [by his] love for the Boston Red Sox” (246). That year, he had every message sent to him about the Boston Red Sox by friends and family printed and sent it out to them as a holiday gift. As of 2019, the Washington Nationals are the most recent World Series Champions. Winning a World series is like building a park; it takes hard work and you have to want it the most, as Leslie Knope did.

            Unlike most Nationals fans my family and I watched National’s throughout both the regular season and the playoffs. Their season started out pretty rough. Though they had possibly the best starting pitching staff in the league and the offense was sloid, their bull pen (backup pitchers) was just awful. They would go up by four runs and consistently in the last two innings, one of the closers from the bull pen would come in and blow the game. I remember many times over the course of the summer screaming at the TV screen. My brother Matt would ask, “Why are you so upset, it’s just a regular season game? One game means almost nothing.” He was right, but it was still hard to watch. The team’s luck began to turn when they brought on Gerardo Parra. He is a good player, but his contribution to the team was more than simply physical. He lightened the very serious mood that the Nationals were playing with. It is hard to win a baseball game when you are very aware that your career depends on it. Parra’s walk-up music was “Baby Shark” and he influence the team to start dancing after every home-run. The celebration of the small victories led the team to a chance at the playoffs.

            After this, the team started to go on ten-game winning streaks, and they were having fun while doing it. You could visibly see how much they love the sport during the games, which is so rare in any sports these days. The bull pen started pitching like they were completely different people and the offense were cranking out four home runs a game like it was nothing. This entire time, my brothers and I are patiently waiting for a chance at the World Series (which we weren’t at all expecting, they had never made it past the first round of the playoffs before). I have been watching Washington sports for twenty years now with little reward. This has only made the victories of the last few years that much sweeter.

            By the time they had made it to the world series, the Nationals had already played in four games which could have knocked them out of the playoffs, but they wanted it and never gave up until the game was over. In the World Series (best of seven games), the Nationals went down 3-2 in the first five games, none of these victories were on the home field for either team. Things were not looking great for the Washington Nationals. The Astros needed to win won of the last two which were both on their home field. Sure, enough though, through the combined strength of some of the biggest names in baseball right now, The Nationals beat the Houston Astros in a seven-game series. This was a huge upset. The odds Vegas had stacked against them were staggering. Anyone who had bet on the Nats was getting rewarded quite handsomely. I went into my psychology class the next day and my teacher, Dr. Merz (who is a Yankees fan) took the first ten minutes of class to talk about the World Series and just how impressive it was that this team had won it. He said it was the most important thing he would talk about with us all week, but his job required him to teach or he could get fired, so we moved on. But my family and I still haven’t as we stayed loyal to our favorite team the in their losses and certainly in their victories.

This Leslie Knope meme exemplifies both the Washington Nationals’ 2019 season and myself while watching the early parts of their regular season.

Works Cited

Poehler, Amy. Yes, Please. Dey St., an Imprint of William Morrow Publishers, 2018.

“10 Things Every Boss Lady Can Learn From Leslie Knope.” Accion, us.accion.org/resource/10-                things-every-boss-lady-can-learn-leslie-knope/.