WASHINGTON—One week after watching the Washington Nationals clinch their first-ever playoff berth, local fans told reporters Thursday that they would never forget exactly where they were and who they were murdering on the night their team beat the Dodgers 4-1.
Fans across the Washington D.C. nostalgically reflected on the moment the Nationals secured a spot in the playoffs, sharing the vibrant memories of every victim they were killing during the game—impressions that they were certain would be with them for the rest of their lives.
“It was the bottom of the ninth, Drew Storen was pitching of course, and I remember Hanley Ramirez was coming up to bat with two outs just as that little bitch Derek started pleading for his life,” Trevor Forrest, 34, of Anacostia told reporters. “Man, I knew I was experiencing something truly special. I’ll never forget that moment because they made that third out and I put a bullet in his head and threw the gun in a nearby dumpster.”
“Go Nats,” he added.
Martin Fuller, a Southeast D.C. resident, reminisced about listening to the postseason-clinching victory on his car radio, fondly recalling the roar of the crowd and the sensation of blood and brain matter spraying across his face as he crushed a homeless man’s skull with a cinder block in a secluded alley.
Even a week later, Kevin Campbell, a 19-year-old from Potomac Gardens, provided vivid details about cheering on the momentous Nationals’ win on his smartphone as he leaned out the window of an SUV and gunned down a 17-year-old honor student, a pregnant woman, and a social worker he had mistaken for members of the gang MS-13.
Around the city, car horns were blaring and screams could be heard echoing through the streets. Following the game, many fans told reporters how hard being a Nationals fan has been over the year given the team’s losing records and the near-constant threat of being a homicide victim, but now, they say, part of that is history.
“I’m just glad I spent that night strangling somebody special,” Petworth resident Martin Fuller said. “And not half drunk beating a stranger to death in some bar. The memory is better that way.”
It’s been 79 years since a Washington D.C. team last made the MLB playoffs, meaning there aren’t many fans left who can remember back to what homicides they committed the last time this happened. That is, aside from 92-year-old Bethesda, MD resident Marvin Stadler who said that it has been worth the wait to witness another winning Washington team, this time while killing his wife, Beverly.
“It was 1933, I remember it well because that was the year I stabbed my brother, Franklin, in the woods,” Stadler said, adding that while he was much younger back then, the thrill and rush remained all the same this time around. “You lose some of the details as the years go by, but I’ll never forget wiping blood off that knife with that newspaper that said ‘Senators Clinch.’ That I remember like it was yesterday.”
For others who grew up hearing tales of their father’s involuntary manslaughter or ruthless homicides from that 1933 season, the Washington Nationals reaching the postseason represents something even more special than just an athletic achievement.
“For so many years my father would tell us the story about how he killed his business partner and threw him in the river on the night the Senators made the playoffs,” diehard Nationals fan Greg Royster said. “It makes me sad that he couldn’t be here, but I know he was there in spirit murdering my wife right along with me as I watched the game in front of the TV.”
“I’m just happy I’ll get to tell my sons about this team,” he added. “Well, at least the ones that I didn’t have to kill for witnessing the first murder.”
