Jesse Dougherty - Buzz Saw: The Improbable Story of How the Washington Nationals Won the World Series

Praise for

BUZZ SAW

Emotional and informative, this is a home run for any fan of the sport.

Publishers Weekly

What we need now more than ever is to soak in the memories of that 2019 team. Doughertys book does exactly what a Nats fanor any baseball fan who appreciates the Nats accomplishmentwould want: It chronicles the championship season with all its drama. Even though Im a voracious consumer of Nats news, I still found Doughertys tale fresh and informative. He focuses on the players and specific games, as a fan would expect, rather than on front-office politics. Dougherty doesnt miss a single high or low, and in between, he mixes in enough fascinating background on various players to satisfy the die-hard Nats fan.

Chuck Todd, Washington Post

What the Nationals accomplished was a singular historical achievement unmatched in baseball history. Dougherty details both the big and small moments that made the Nationals resurgence possible. The final product makes Buzz Saw the needed work that puts the miraculousness of the Nationals comeback in perspective.

Kyle Glaser, Baseball America

Remarkable stories these days can quickly disappear into the blast of internet drama or depressing news cycles. That gives even more reason to go back during spring training and revisit one feel-good story of 2019: the Washington Nationals improbable championship run. The [Washington] Posts beat reporter for the Nats, Jesse Dougherty, has cranked out a wonderful book: Buzz Saw narrates the wild 2019 season, from the team putting up the worst season start in its history to beating the best-in-baseball Houston Astros for the championship. Its a feel-good story not just for Nats fans, especially given the new cheating scandal that has swallowed up the Astros since the World Series and made them baseballs villains.

Emily Belz, World magazine

As an insiders view of a remarkable run, this should be enjoyed by all baseball fans.

John Maxymuk, Library Journal

[T]his informative and remarkably up-to-date chronicle recreates a truly memorable year in baseball. [T]he Nationals triumph was, and remains, a feel-good story in a troubled sport, and this riveting account comes at just the right time, with a new season about to begin. Play ball!

Mark Levine, Booklist

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Copyright 2020 by Jesse Dougherty

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First Simon & Schuster trade paperback edition April 2021

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Interior design by Kyle Kabel

Jacket design by Rich Hasselberger

Jacket photographs (front) by Kyodo News/Getty Images; (back) by The Washington Post /Getty Images

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020934119

ISBN 978-1-9821-5226-0

ISBN 978-1-9821-5227-7 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-9821-5228-4 (ebook)

For Lisa and Paul

F rom here, from thirty floors above San Diego, from a room that overlooks the bay, then the ocean, then the edge of the freaking world, Mike Rizzo can see everything. It is what hed been seeking for decades. This view. A moment of closure. Perspective that only comes at the top.

And fuck, he says, over and over, about ten times in forty minutes, it feels fucking good. Look at this. Look at the bright, manicured grass. Look at the boats cutting through the water, forming waves in their wake, forgetting their way for a second, maybe two, for just long enough to enjoy the ride. Look at the sun, but not too hard, because its busting through the window, bouncing off Rizzos bald head, bathing everything in this suite, from the white sheets to his black sneakers, in yellow light.

Look at the top, and now look who made it there.

The emotions are still there, Rizzo says, fiddling with his new wedding band, fighting the urge to break down and cry. They always will be.

Rizzo cant look around without looking back. The past happened. The past is why sitting on this couch, inside the Manchester Grand Hyatt, is so sweet. Hes on the West Coast for important business. Baseballs annual winter meetings are happening downstairs. Rizzo, the general manager of the Washington Nationals, is constructing a roster for 2020. He has agents to meet. He has phone calls to make. But, these days, the fifty-eight-year-old often sinks into long bouts of reflection. Youll have to forgive him for that. Youll also have to let him explain.

He has never had a December like this. He has never walked through these meetings, a skip in his step, and had each conversation start with the same word. Congratulations. Everyone is saying it. Its not getting old. Because they were all watching in October, when the Nationals took their tortured history, the years of playoff heartbreak, and changed, well, everything.

The early years rush back and Rizzo leans forward. He was named GM in 2009, a little more than a decade ago, and the first real disappointment came two years later. Rizzo wanted to finish 81-81. He wanted it more than anything. But the Nationals had one game canceled, it was not rescheduled, and their final record, when six months added up, was 80-81. A win short.

Yet Rizzo soon learned that was nothing. He and Washington learned the hard way. His shoulders slump as he tells those stories, of four seasons that finished in the National League Division Series. They were one strike away from advancing in 2012, before Pete Kozma, the Cardinals light-hitting shortstop, ripped a two-run single to rip them apart. Their next playoff run, in the fall of 2014, crumbled in San Francisco.

Then came 2016, another great club, another chance, and, by the end of it, another mark against faith. That time it was the Dodgers. The run after that, in 2017, slipped in Game 5 against the Cubs, when Max Scherzer came in from the bullpen and the stadium went sideways. The common thread was that the Nationals never won.

Its terrible. Terrible. Rizzo remembers every time he woke in the first morning of the offseason, dazed by defeat, and had to start all over again. Sometimes he didnt even wait that long. In October of 2014, after the Nationals fell to the Giants, Rizzo worked through the flight back to Washington. He opened his laptop, the screen glowing in the dark charter plane, and stared at a list of returning players, of free agent targets, of prospects and other bits of the future. There had to be an answer, he thought, in this web of losses and loose ends. The impossible part was finding it.

Its a terrible feeling.