Rachel Levitin: Renion recalls Riggleman's abrupt resignation

The Nationals ran into a familiar face last week while in Cincinnati. Former Nats Manager Jim Riggleman, who served as manager from 2009 to 2011, caught up with general manager Mike Rizzo and reflected on his time with the ballclub. Riggleman is now the Reds' third base coach, after serving as a minor league manager in their system for a couple of seasons.

According to reports, Riggleman doesn't harbor any ill will against the club and is happy to be working in baseball, regardless of the position. But as longtime Nats fans will recall, Riggleman left on quite the abrupt note.

The Nats were 38-37 and above .500 in June for the first time since 2005 Riggleman resigned on June 23, 2011. Honestly, I still remember where I was when he made the announcement. My jaw physically dropped, like a Looney Tunes character in shock, while watching it on TV from my apartment in Northwest D.C.

When reading up recently about the Nats' road trip and the Riggleman encounter, I couldn't help but wonder whether Riggleman's resignation was the true turning point toward the Nats' successful run.

Sure, the players are responsible for which team will end up winning at the end of the day, but the guidance of a quality skipper is what helps monitor the team's progress, harness the its potential and lead that potential toward greatness.

John McLaren took over for Riggleman on an interim basis only be replaced by manager Davey Johnson, who proceeded to take the Nats on a wild and memorable ride during his tenure with the ballclub.

Ever since Riggleman's departure, the Nats have accomplished a lot. It's been nearly four years since the sudden changing of the guard and Washington is no longer a cellar-dwelling team with a joke of a reputation. In Riggleman's defense, he managed the Nats during two of the toughest seasons in the ballclub's history and he helped lead a charge in his final few months of work with the team to bring them above .500, which was no easy feat at the time.

What Riggleman started was only continued by his successors. That plus smart business run by Rizzo has pushed this team to the forefront of baseball as it continues to work toward obtaining the sport's top prize.

Plus, if Riggleman didn't resign, D.C. sports fans may have never been treated to the total amount of Johnson witticisms that we ended up experiencing, and frankly, that's a world I don't want to live it.

Rachel Levitin blogs about the Nationals for District Sports Page. Follow her on Twitter: @RHLevitin. She will be sharing her observations about baseball in the nation's capital as part of MASNsports.com's season-long initiative of welcoming guest bloggers to our little corner of cyberspace. All opinions expressed are those of the guest bloggers, who are not employed by MASNsports.com but are just as passionate about their baseball as our roster of writers.