LOVERRO: Nationals clubhouse manager Mike Wallace has seen it all over 10 years

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

When Mike Wallace arrived in the visitor’s locker room at RFK Stadium in March 2005, it was as if this Dallas Cowboys fan from Arlington, Texas had perhaps fulfilled his destiny — to bring back to Washington what theiving baseball owner Bob Short stole from the nation’s capital.

“It was as if I had gone full circle,” said the Nationals’ longtime clubhouse manager, reflecting on the rebirth of baseball in Washington as the Nationals begin their 11th season with Opening Day against the New York Mets at Nationals Park.

Wallace, known as “Wally,” started his career in baseball with the Texas Rangers in 1973 and worked for Short, who relocated the Washington Senators to the Dallas suburb following the 1971 season.

Though the road went through Montreal, Wallace, perhaps more than any member of the orphaned franchise that became the Washington Nationals in 2005, appreciated the moment when he arrived at RFK Stadium to set up shop for the return of baseball to D.C.

Wallace had his work cut out for him to get the antiquated, dormant interiors of RFK Stadium ready to call home for a roster full of major-league ballplayers and coaches. It’s Wallace’s job to make sure everyone on the roster has what he needs at his locker when he needs it, or that Wallace can get something for them — equipment, services — when they need it.

He was resurrecting a body that had been in a baseball coma for 33 years.
“We just worked with what we had,” Wallace said. “It was kind of close, comfy. The coach’s locker room you could put both hands on either side of the wall in the room. There wasn’t a whole lot of space. We were in the visitor’s locker room there because D.C. United had the home locker room.

“The biggest thing is we were going in there blind. Everyone was saying, ’Is everything going to work? Is everything going to be ready?’ For the most part, it was. One thing was the batting cage was dug in at the bottom of the stairs, dug into the dirt, and every time it rained, it flooded. God rest his soul, watching Mitchell Page [the batting coach in 2006] walk around with his coffee mug and his sandals because there was about an inch of water down there. We had to make sure the drainage pumps didn’t get clogged up from the peanut shells from the stands.”

Wallace took a tour of RFK Stadium in the winter to get a handle on what he would be facing. On that tour, he found a room that had the jerseys from the Cracker Jack Old Timers games that were played in the stadium in the 1980s — all part of the effort to drum up support for the return of baseball to the District. “They may still be there,” Wallace said, laughing as he remembered the museum-like tour of failed baseball recruitment efforts in Washington.

But it wasn’t until the team came up from spring training in Viera that Wallace could set up shop for veteran ballplayers like Vinny Castilla and Jose Guillen, newcomers to the team who were used to major-league facilities.

The ones who came from Montreal? They were used to second-hand furniture and spare parts. Major League Baseball had purchased the Expos in 2002 from Jeffrey Loria in a historic three-franchise deal that allowed Loria to buy the then-Florida Marlins from John Henry, who in turn joined a group buying the Boston Red Sox.

The Expos players and team personnel who lived through the MLB-ownership years in Montreal arrived in Washington prepared to expect the worst. “We didn’t have the greatest facility in Montreal, either,” Wallace said, remembering the decaying home that was Olympic Stadium.

But they also brought with them that chip on their shoulders from being baseball’s orphan.

“All of us who came from Montreal were like a little family because when we were up in Montreal, we were the little engine that could,” Wallace said. “It was like that when we came to D.C. because we were still being run from Major League Baseball.”

What was different, though, was what happened on the field and in the stands. That Nationals team stunned everyone with a 50-31 record and first place in the National League East after the first half of the season, though the bottom would fall out in the second half with a 31-50 record to finish the season at 81-81. The finish, though, doesn’t diminish the memories of that inaugural season.

“I am from Arlington, Texas, and grew up a Cowboys fan,” Wallace said. “I remember watching when the Cowboys would play the Redskins at RFK Stadium, you would see those stands bouncing up and down. So, it was fun to see that for baseball. When the visiting teams would come in and see that, it kind of unnerved them a bit.

“It was a lot of fun, and it was also awe-inspiring to be in the nation’s capital, one of the most powerful cities in the world, and to have us be part of it.”
“That first group of players will always have a special place for me,” said Wallace, who helped right the wrong his former boss had done to Washington baseball fans.

• Thom Loverro is co-host of “The Sports Fix,” noon to 2 p.m. daily on ESPN 980 and espn980.com.