Looks like dcbaseball.com has unveiled the official team name and logo. It's the Washington Nationals, and the logo is a pleasantly shaded bit of nothing.

It seems like a conscious decision was made to keep the team as featureless as possible. An adjective for the team name -- and a somewhat abstract one at that. Great. Red white and blue color scheme on the logo? Daring. I particularly like the use of a fucking baseball as the logo's centerpiece. In case people forget what sport they're watching, I guess.

The worst part is the inevitability of the merchandising evolution. First there'll be the initial wave of "we'll buy anything" purchases. Then sports talk radio will get sick of using two unnecessary syllables -- there are so many athletes and coaches who we need to talk about firing, after all. So Nationals:Nats as Capitals:Caps. Reluctantly, we'll finally admit to ourselves that we're cheering for an airport (or a dead crooner), and Nat will come to mean Gnat.

Almost immediately, a wave of starter jackets emblazoned with a ferocious-looking anthropomorphized insect will be disgorged onto area department stores. Post sportswriters will start a major push to convince readers that baseball puns involving the word "swat" are clever.

Finally, a couple of Christmas seasons later, someone will design a real logo, which will be used for the absolute minimum period necessary to allow the sale of throwback paraphenalia.

That's right: I have seen the future. And it's like today, but with slightly more holograms.