During the 2018 Spring Training, newly minted Washington Nationals manager Dave Martinez brought three camels to camp. This vaguely parabolic gesture had two purposes.
Martinez’s message might have sounded more like a line from a romance novel written by aliens, but it alluded to the Nationals’ frustrating history. Despite reaching October in four of the last six seasons, the Nationals had never won a playoff series. Ever. Even when they were the Montreal Expos. Martinez had brought the camel in to show his players that this was the year they would finally make it past the divisional round, that they would finally get over the hump.