F.P. Santangelo, 50, has been the color analyst for the Washington Nationals broadcast team since 2011. He played seven years in the major leagues for the Montreal Expos, the San Francisco Giants, the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Oakland Athletics. Santangelo lives in Old Town Alexandria.

You obviously support the Nats, but you can’t just be a homer in the booth. How do you walk that line?

People call me a homer like it’s a negative. When you look at all the statues of the beloved broadcasters that have been in one place for a long time, they’re all homers. If you’re going to put a statue of a broadcaster outside the stadium, it’s not because he crushed the team every night. It’s because he loved the team. And I’m a fan in the booth and I love these guys. I know their wives, their kids, their moms, their dads. I’m on a bus, a plane, a hotel, a clubhouse with them for six months. So when people say he’s such a homer, that’s a compliment to me.

I have to admit that your style kind of bugged me in the early years, but I’ve really come around and feel like I learn things about baseball listening to you.

I bugged myself. In 2011, I just didn’t know how to do it. I was just intimidated and nervous. I was worried about the owners listening, the general manager listening, the wives listening, the fans. And I’m trying to appease everybody, and every word is calculated. Halfway through 2012 I just said, Screw it, let it rip. Be yourself. And it all started falling into place.

Baseball people are notoriously superstitious. Do you have any superstitions in the booth?

I try to stay with a routine every day. If I have a pen I’m using for my scorecard and the Nats are winning, I’ll keep using the same pen. I’ve worn the same shirt four or five games in a row because they’ve won. And it stinks after about the third game. I’m a creature of habit. If they’re winning I’ll drive the exact same way to the ballpark. It’s all stuff I did as a player.

Is there a part of you that thinks you could still play?

No. [Laughs.] I couldn’t play when I did play, so there’s no way I could play now. You know what’s cool is that I got it all out of my system. I’m not the frustrated ex-major leaguer. In my mind, I wrung out every bit of ability I had to play seven years in the big leagues. People say sometimes that I talk about myself too much on the air, and I think the reason I do is that I’m still shocked that I made it this far. And I’m still proud of the fact that a 20th-round draft pick that signed for a thousand dollars made it this far and stayed this long.

Is there a player in baseball who bugs you?

There’s a type of player who bugs me. The guys that maybe take it for granted where they’re at and maybe don’t appreciate that they’re playing at the highest level. And what an honor and privilege it is to play on this level on a daily basis. There’s a certain way that you comport yourself on the field, off the field, in the clubhouse and respect the game. There are certain guys that I feel like don’t respect the game and feel like the game owes them something. And I feel like it’s the other way around. We as players owe the game something every time we step on the field. It’s not the flashy guys or the guys who do all the celebrations because that’s just the way the game’s evolving. That used to bug me, but in today’s game that’s pretty much normal.

Who’s a non-sports person in D.C. you’d most like to meet?

Hmm. Well, I met Anthony Kennedy. It turns out he was a huge fan of the broadcast and called the Nats to meet me. One of the most powerful Supreme Court justices wanted to meet me? Just some dope who used to play baseball? It was awesome. He came to the game, and I went and sat down with him and his wife. He told me I should make an instructional video on all the tips I give on the broadcast.

Who is most responsible for you becoming a baseball player?

My dad. He was a low-pressure dad, and we used to play Wiffle ball all the time. And when I was in Little League he would grab a bucket of balls and pitch to me — until I got older and started whizzing them by his head and he got a little nervous. We lived in Detroit until I was about 7, and we would lay in bed on summer nights and listen to Ernie Harwell broadcast baseball games. And I’ll never forget how great he was at it.

Do you remember your major league debut?

Oh, God, yeah. Like it was yesterday. I had seven years in the minor leagues. I got the call. They told me to be there early, and I got to the clubhouse at noon for a 7 p.m. game. Bill Stoneman, who was the GM for the Expos, had to let me into the clubhouse because it was locked. He said, “Don’t you think you’re early?” and I said, “I’ve been waiting my whole life for this. There’s no such thing as early.” Felipe Alou, the manager, walked in at 1 p.m., and I was the only guy in the clubhouse. So he went and put my name on the lineup card for that night. The story goes that he said, “He’s more ready than anyone I’ve got on this team right now. He’s playing tonight.”

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