WMAL Interview - FRED FROMMER - 03.30.18

INTERVIEW -- FRED FROMMER - author of 'You Gotta Have Heart,' a history of Washington baseball, and head of the sports business practice at the Dewey Square Group – previewed Nats Opening Day.
•    Washington Nationals’ Opening Day at Reds postponed from Thursday to Friday (Washington Times) -- Washington Nationals fans will have to wait one more day for Opening Day than they planned. The Nationals’ game Thursday at the Cincinnati Reds, the first game of the 2018 regular season, has been postponed to Friday due to impending inclement weather.
•    Sports Illustrated picks Nationals to win World Series … again (WTOP / March 20, 2018) - WASHINGTON — The annual Sports Illustrated baseball preview was released Tuesday, and the magazine has chosen the Washington Nationals to beat the New York Yankees in this year’s Fall Classic. It’s not the first time they’ve predicted a Nats World Series title. The magazine first picked the Nationals to win in 2013, following the club’s breakout, 98-win 2012 campaign. Despite Washington missing the playoffs that year, SI doubled down in 2014, choosing the Nats again. They picked the Nats to make it to (but lose) the series in 2015, another season that ended short of the playoffs.
•    FROMMER WROTE A PIECE IN WASHINGTON POST: Good news, Nationals fans: Rookie managers have historically done well in D.C. (Washington Post / By Frederic J. Frommer March 28 at 3:32 PM -- Frederic J. Frommer is the author of “You Gotta Have Heart,” a history of Washington baseball, and leader of the sports business practice at the Dewey Square Group, a public affairs firm in Washington.) -- In replacing manager Dusty Baker with Dave Martinez, the Washington Nationals are betting on an untested leader over one with 22 years of managerial experience.   It’s a move that some baseball experts think will pay off — notably Sports Illustrated, which predicts that the Nats will win the World Series this year. But it’s been nearly two decades since a rookie manager led his team to a World Series title, when Bob Brenly did it with the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2001, and rookie managers inheriting playoff teams have had a mixed record of success in recent years. From a historical standpoint, though, the Nats are onto something: Dating back nearly a century, Washington’s had a lot of success with rookie managers.  The Washington Senators won the city’s only three pennants — all in the 1920s and early ’30s — under the leadership of novice managers. Even after the District’s last World Series appearance, in 1933, the Senators continued to have good luck with a series of first-year skippers, covering several decades and two franchises. In 1969, Ted Williams came out of retirement and with a fresh pair of eyes led the second Senators team to its only winning season.