Senators, Nationals and the Big Train: Why this World Series is special

I was born and raised in Bethesda, Md., and attended Walter Johnson High School, named after the greatest pitcher of all time. I wrote for the school newspaper, The Pitch, and I did some work for the yearbook, The Windup. It was a privilege and a thrill to wear a baseball and basketball uniform with Walter Johnson written on it. But for some reason, we were the Spartans, not the Big Train, which was the nickname given to Walter Johnson in 1911 by one of the greatest sportswriters ever -- Grantland Rice.

I tell people about my high school and I often get quizzical looks, as if there's no way a school could be named after a baseball player. But Walter Johnson was much more than that, on and…