Joan of Arc, seen here at her perch in Meridian Hill Park (in this photo taken by DCist contributing photographer Grayson Shepard) has witnessed many political battles take place in the District of Columbia over many decades, but one perhaps not as poisonous as the recent baseball stadium drama that has unfolded before us this past fall.

With Major League Baseball officials seemingly ready to give up on the dream of bringing America’s game back to the nation’s capital — calling the new District Council stadium financing amendment as “wholly unacceptable” and shutting down the Nationals’ promotions operation — who will play the role of martyr? Will it be Mayor Anthony Williams, whose mission to bring baseball back to the District seems to be barely on life support, slipping through his fingers like sand in an hourglass? Or will it be Council Chairman Linda Cropp, the ambitious and savvy District politico, who is both the instant and easiest target of enraged baseball supporters and on the flipside, the instant savior to so many D.C. residents who were opposed to the public financing deal in the first place.

Perhaps we’re being a tad bit melodramatic, since the deal has not been declared dead yet (though it sounds very much that way if you look at the Post’s coverage), but who will fall? Will Mayor Williams, the anti-Marion Barry, be known as the city’s leader who coddled corporate interests too much, forgetting his constituents as he fought to return sporting honor to a capital city in need of athletic redemption? Or will it be Cropp, a Joan of Arc riding into Orleans wounded by arrows, but stubbornly defiant, defending her people from enemies she perceives as financially bloodsucking serpents.