Opinion

Test your baseball knowledge. Then buy a slice of a team.

As ever, the test is devilishly difficult; I scored only 11 out of 41, and I took “Baseball in American History” in undergrad! (Of course, I’d be happy to provide an excellent term paper on the sexual politics of the locker room during the gay liberation movement. George Will, if you’re reading this, I’m kidding! Or am I!)

If you know tidbits such as which Hall of Fame second baseman got two or more hits in a record 13 consecutive games, you will do better. If not, I’d say just try to avoid made-up names, but it turns out that Catfish Hunter and Goose Gossage both actually played.

Next year, if Dan Pink’s proposal gets picked up, the Washington Nationals might make an oddity appearance in the quiz — as the first MLB team to be owned by its fans.

In the latest installment of his imaginative Why Not? series, Dan explains exactly how the family that owns the Nats could find a buyer group that would solve many of the problems that attend sports team ownership, which Dan says reflects “the crudest defects of the modern U.S. economy.”

This route would require some new regulation, and there would be bumps along the way, Dan writes, but fan ownership “is not some fever dream conjured by AOC and Noam Chomsky over lunch at a vegan co-op.” He notes that the model has already hummed along for years at one of the strongest franchises in a different American sport.

Chaser: Ted Johnson writes that, at least for a bit longer, we’re still in the throes of March Madness, when college basketball turns into a tonic for a fractured nation.

Baltimore’s bridge disaster

The country was unified in horror when we woke up Tuesday and watched video of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsing after being struck by a container ship. Now, the Editorial Board writes, we need to be unified in determination.

“At a time when … the country’s political institutions are mired in disagreement and indecision, this tragedy can’t get caught up in partisan sniping,” the board writes. “It’s a time to put aside differences, to rebuild and to tap what is still the United States’ greatest strength: its deep reservoir of native optimism.” The board finds inspiration in Pennsylvania’s speedy repair of a bridge collapse last year along Interstate 95.

Indeed, it’s easy to think of the Key Bridge in highway terms, what with the chilling images of cars racing across it right before its collapse. But former Post editor and reporter Will Englund writes that the collapse’s blockage of maritime transport is of much greater magnitude than of anything on wheels.

Englund explains how Baltimore came to be one of the United States’ most vital ports. Until the bridge wreckage is cleared, he writes, that port “is stymied, shut tight, under blockade.”

It’s hard for Englund to imagine a disaster of such scale in old Baltimore, when ships trundled so much farther toward the harbor. Hulks such as this week’s offending ship simply couldn’t fit. The vessel and the bridge alike, Englund writes, join the lost road workers as “casualties of a business that has grown gigantic in every way.”

Impromptu No. 2

Post Opinions’ new podcast is back with a second episode, this time on President Biden’s push to transition the nation to electric vehicles — and, as promised, it’s a whole new crew discussing the matter.

Chuck Lane, Megan McArdle and Catherine Rampell chat through whether America is ready for such a revolution, or even wants it.

Elsewhere on the information superhighway, Opinions editor Travis Meier’s column doesn’t take a stand on electric vs. gas-powered vehicles, but it has fighting words for the places that house them (or, rather, don’t): Empty parking lots are killing downtowns that are trying to revive themselves.

“Our nation’s downtowns are full of these neglected spaces — surface lots of crumbling asphalt and weeds, emblematic of absentee property owners and a disregard for the public good,” he writes. “I would know. I live next to three.”

More politics

You know what, Donald Trump? I think we can arrange that! But Biden, don’t get your hopes up; today we’re dealing with the “double hater.”

Ramesh Ponnuru can’t stomach either major candidate in this fall’s election — Trump for his unfitness and Biden for his raft of progressive policies, most importantly on abortion. Ramesh is, in other words, a double hater. He does not intend to hold his nose and vote for either.

“Try, as best you can,” he advises his fellow double negatives, “not to hate either Trump or Biden. But if you don’t think either candidate deserves your vote, don’t let anyone browbeat you into giving it to one of them.”

Chaser: Catch Ramesh discussing the issue further — and specifically the stakes anti-Trump Republicans face when choosing whether to endorse Biden — with Jason Willick in the latest edition of Alexi McCammond’s Prompt 2024 newsletter.

Smartest, fastest

• Rokhaya Diallo reports that France finally seems ready for a #MeToo movement led by a new generation.
• Karen Tumulty analyzes the unexpected upside to the shocking political scandal surrounding New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez (D).
• The supposedly “landmark” Apple lawsuit ignores two realities, Adam Lashinsky writes.

It’s a goodbye. It’s a haiku. It’s … The Bye-Ku.

Twelve wrong in a row

With twenty-nine still to go

The quiz yips set in

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Have your own newsy haiku? Email it to me, along with any questions/comments/ambiguities. See you tomorrow!