The Washington Post - 20.10.2019

World Series Game 1

Nationals at Astros

Tu esday, 8:08 p.m., Fox

Inside: A visit to the cage

helped Juan Soto regain

his confidence. D10

COLLEGE FOOTBALL

Virginia Te ch outlasts

North Carolina in an epic

six-overtime clash. D5

HOCKEY

Capitals forward T.J. Oshie

improved near the net and

leads the team in goals. D8

COLLEGE FOOTBALL

A signature victory eludes

Michigan again, this time

in a loss at Penn State. D3

COLLEGE FOOTBALL

Maryland’s backups can’t

finish the job in another

tough defeat to Indiana. D4

KLMNO

SPORTS

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 20 , 2019. WASHINGTONPOST.COM/SPORTS M2 D

BY BARRY SVRLUGA

On Tuesday night, Te d Lerner stared out

from a suite at Nationals Park, sitting

while the 43,976 deep-throated, red-clad

fans stood, one and all. The oldest of his

three children, Mark, was outside in the

din, pacing around his front-row seat de-

spite a left leg lost to cancer. In the suite,

Debra Lerner Cohen, the older of Lerner’s

two daughters, approached her father.

There were still outs to get, but the Nation-

al League pennant — and a trip to the

World Series — felt close.

“Can you believe this, Dad?” Debra asked.

Te d Lerner isn’t loquacious. He isn’t

boisterous. He presents as stoic. People

who watch games with him describe him

as inquisitive b ut even-keeled, reacting not

to a specific bounce but more interested in

how it fits in the larger picture. At that

moment, since his family officially took

over the Nationals in July 2006, he had

presided over 2,168 regular season games

and 28 more in the postseason. He had

closed old RFK Stadium and opened a new

ballpark. He h ad hired and fired managers.

This is what it built to.

“It’s just amazing,” Lerner said to his

daughter. “I’m so happy.”

It w as his 94th birthday.

“Pure joy,” Debra said last week.

“It’s indescribable the happiness we saw

on his face,” Mark Lerner said.

The Nationals’ upcoming appearance in

the World Series — a first for this f ranchise,

the first for Washington in 86 years —

means so many different things to so many

different people. For the players, just a

SEE LERNER ON D10

All about family

For longtime owner Ted Lerner, Nationals’ World Series berth is about ties that bind

JONATHAN NEWTON/THE WASHINGTON POST

BY STEVEN GOFF

toronto — D.C. United’s sea-
son — and Wayne Rooney’s MLS
tenure — reached an unceremo-
nious end Saturday after a stag-
gering swing of events deep in a
first-round playoff against To -
ronto FC.
United’s equalizer in the dy-
ing moments of regulation
forced extra time and rekindled
hope that Rooney, the English
superstar who had revitalized
the organization upon his arriv-
al last year, would extend his
stay at least four more days.
As quickly as the outlook
brightened, however, it unrav-
eled in rapid and horrific style.
To ronto scored four goals before
the 30-minute bonus period was
halfway done and coasted to a
5-1 victory at BMO Field.
Rooney, who in August an-
nounced he would return to
England a year earlier than
planned, finished his United
term watching the last 15 min-
utes of extra time from the
bench. The outcome had been
settled.
He had scored just once since
July 1, missing several matches
along the way, but there was no
denying his contributions, on
and off the field.
“It’s an unfortunate way for
him to finish here,” Coach Ben
Olsen said. “I’m sure he would
have wanted to hit the back of
the net and push us into the next
round.”
For the second consecutive
autumn, his season slipped away
in the opening round of the
postseason. Both times, elimina-
tion came after the standard
90 minutes.
Rooney left the locker room
without speaking to reporters,
heading to the team charter
back to Washington before a trip
home to join second-flight Der-
by County as a player and assis-
tant coach.
SEE UNITED ON D12

Season ends

for United

after collapse

in extra time

TORONTO FC 5,

D.C. UNITED 1 (ET)

Te nnessee 13 2 LSU 36 3 Clemson 45 West Virginia 14 6 Wisconsin 23 16 Michigan 21 9 Florida 38 Kentucky 0Indiana 34 Duke14N. Carolina 41 South Florida 3
1 Alabama 35 Mississippi St.13Louisville 10 5 Oklahoma 52 Illinois 24 7 Penn State 28 S. Carolina 27 10 Georgia 21 Maryland 28 Virginia 48 Virginia Te ch 43 Navy3 5

BY DAVE SHEININ

houston — The Houston Astros

were running out of chances,

energy, warm bodies and life late

Saturday night, in their third

game in three days, in their

second city and second time zone

in 24 hours, near the end of the

third week of the postseason and

deep into their seventh straight

month of playing baseball to-

gether. And somewhere deep

down, t hey understood they were

nearing last chances. Win or lose,

there would be a tomorrow. But

tomorrow’s tomorrow was no

given.

But what they had, even at

their most dire moment, was José

Altuve. And what Altuve had was

a bat. And what that bat had was

one more mighty swing. In the

bottom o f the ninth inning Satur-

day night, in Game 6 of the

American League Championship

Series, it propelled a slider from

Aroldis Chapman, the New York

Yankees’ flamethrowing closer,

over the wall in left — a two-run

homer that ended the ALCS and

put the Astros in the World S eries

against the Washington Nation-

als.

They will soon raise another

AL pennant in Houston, the sec-

ond in three years, after a dra-

matic, 6-4 victory Saturday night

in which the Astros ended the

Yankees’ season for the third time

in five years. The Astros are

loaded with high-end talent and

blessed with ample creativity and

resolve — but after the high-wire

act they pulled off with their

pitching in Game 6, they were

also in desperate need of a day

off.

The Astros were two outs away

from victory, a nd the Yankees two

outs from oblivion, when DJ

LeMahieu, the Yankees’ first

baseman, smashed a two-run,

opposite-field homer off Astros

closer Roberto Osuna to tie the

score — leaving the Astros

SEE ALCS ON D11

Altuve’s blast

gives Houston

the AL crown,

shot at Nats

ASTROS 6,

YANKEES 4

Owner Ted Lerner

hugs Manager Dave

Martinez after the

Nationals advanced

to the World Series.

enough time for Kyle Shanahan to

become a Super Bowl offensive

coordinator in Atlanta and a head

coach in San Francisco. Enough

time, too, for the NFL to see that

whatever Kyle was doing deep in

those team meeting rooms with

his friends — all in their 20s and

30s — was genius.

And as Snyder and Allen try to

start the Redskins again, opening

a search for the ninth coach of

Snyder’s regime, their pursuit will

be clouded by the fact that they

SEE REDSKINS ON D8

members. Much of what he said

was deferential, complimentary

to many in a city he said he en-

joyed. But then he launched a

shot. It was delivered subtly yet

still roared into the building with

a vicious, searing precision.

“I think it’s pretty easy not to

make [Sunday’s game] personal,”

he said. “The guys who get person-

al with i t don’t p lay in the g ame.”

More than five years have

passed since the Mike and Kyle

Shanahan years in Ashburn, a

24-40 debacle wrapped around

the Robert Griffin III fiasco and

cocooned by the 140-185-1 calam-

ity of Snyder’s ownership —

Daniel Snyder and team president

Bruce Allen. His San Francisco

49ers come to FedEx Field on

Sunday as one of the NFL’s best

teams, at 5-0 and in first place in

the NFC West. Snyder and Allen’s

team s its near the league’s b ottom,

lurching in lost circles, searching

for a replacement for M ike Shana-

han’s r eplacement.

Many around the NFL expect

Kyle Shanahan will try to bury the

Redskins, splattering his ven-

geance across FedEx’s score-

boards. His words seemed to re-

flect this standing as they spilled

from the speaker during a confer-

ence call with Washington media

BY LES CARPENTER

Kyle Shanahan’s voice floated

from a speaker this week, filling a

room a t the Washington Redskins’

practice facility much the way it

had bounced across the meeting

halls and coaches’ offices years

before — firm, c onfident and load-

ed with youthful certainty. It was

almost as if he had sneaked past

the guards to toss a few last rocks

through the windows of the men

who never understood the genius

of those lost days.

In a way, he has already won the

war that he and his father, Mike,

fought with Redskins owner

Shanahan can show Redskins what might have been

DANIEL SHIREY/GETTY IMAGES

Kyle Shanahan, an assistant with the Redskins from 2010 to 2013,
has the 49ers off to a 5-0 start in his third season as head coach.

49ers at Redskins

Today, 1 p.m., Fox

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