Merry STRASmas!!!

It's your girl SportsGal89 In the building, and ya'll I need to make an apology to all of my Twitter and FB friends out in the world.
The number one trending topic on both my MLB news feeds on Twitter and FB as well as friend pages and status updates all featured this highly anticipated new Washington Nationals pitcher Stephen Strasburg. So anticipated that the Nationals quite possibly had their first ever sold out game (at least I would believe it.) I am never one to invest so much into one player especially when they are coming into their rookie season. And to be honest I am still learning the ropes of the world of baseball and don't follow their athletes as closely as I have with other sports. So when all of this news about Strasburg came out, I was definitely over it. I mean how much can you give an athlete who hasn't even played his first game yet? HELLO, can we say Jamarcus Russell! Well, Sports fans I stand corrected. I understand why people in D.C. and in the MLB world were going nuts over this almost 100mph arm at the age of 21 and playing the first of many big games.
Okay so what is all the hype? This San Diego born, right-handed pitcher was the number 1 draft pick in the 2009 MLB Draft. His contract with the Nationals had him signed at 15.1 million dollars breaking the record of Mark Prior who had been signed in 2001 at 10.5 million.
His notoriety has grown as a pitcher for the San Diego State University Aztecs, and his stint as the lone collegiate player on the U.S. Baseball team during the Summer Olympics in Beijing.
After being picked by the Nats, Starsburg spent time in the minor leagues before being called up to start in last nights game at Nat's stadium against the Pittsburgh Pirates. And what a sight it was to see. Strasburg picked up a win in his debut, pitching seven innings, giving up 2 runs, no walks and striking out 14, setting a new team strikeout record, (to be honest, I think there are a lot of new team records that will be beaten with him in the lineup). Needless to say, I think that despite the loss Pirates players might just be amazed about the genius that is Strasburg.
What does this do for the city and the team, well given that the game was sold out- I think the number was some 40,000 plus, it means that more often than not sleeping stadium has now been awoken by an amazing player. We've seen it happen in many different venues- Lebron with the Cavs, Baron Davis when he was with the Warriors, Yao in Houston, Cincinnati Bengals when they started winning games. Will his luck run out? Not likely, but will the flair of watching him play run out? Probably, but for now the fans in D.C. and baseball fans around the world sat in awe at watching this pitching phenom have a game that will last a lifetime.

Here's a video clip of a great day on the mound: