Nationals Park
A few weeks ago, after being shut out of Opening Night tickets (they sold out in 6 minutes while we waited on hold and in an online ticket "waiting room"), we decided to buy a 40-game season package for the Washington Nationals. For $10 per seat, per game, including Opening Night, it seemed like a good deal. The package included 6 Mets games, 6 Phillies game (easily sellable to a good friend who is from Philly), and 13 games which are on Friday/Saturday nights, that's already half the package. And considering that we both work in offices with 100+ people, we figured it wouldn't be difficult to sell tickets to games we can't go to. And to prove it, even before the season started, I was able to sell 10 games to fans in my office spanning the first two months of baseball.
While Opening Night was last night and we spent a good 3 hours at the stadium, we didn't get a chance to walk around and actually look at the detail and take it all in, mostly because of the sheer number of people walking along with us. We figure we'll get the chance to stroll leisurely before another game, when there will definitely be less than 40,000 other people with us. But my initial thought of the stadium is that while it's brand-spanking new, it's unfortunately not that exciting. Perhaps there are a few things they could have done differently to make it more fun, but it's just difficult to build a new stadium for a team to call home when the team just doesn't have much history to build around. Many of the new stadiums these days focus on modern architecture and how they can best display snippets of the team's history along the concourse walkway. The Nationals really didn't have option. Hopefully one day they will be able to replace some of the displays of Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle with images of Ryan Zimmerman and some other to-be Nationals Great.
Just for fun, here's my Mastercard commercial from last night:
15 minute Metro ride from Foggy Bottom to Navy Yard: Surprisingly painless.
90 minute wait on line to get into the stadium because Secret Service only set up 3 metal detectors at the first base entrance: Unshockingly excruciating.
30 seconds of boos as the President strolled to the mound to throw the "ceremonial" first pitch (which was way high): Priceless.
While Opening Night was last night and we spent a good 3 hours at the stadium, we didn't get a chance to walk around and actually look at the detail and take it all in, mostly because of the sheer number of people walking along with us. We figure we'll get the chance to stroll leisurely before another game, when there will definitely be less than 40,000 other people with us. But my initial thought of the stadium is that while it's brand-spanking new, it's unfortunately not that exciting. Perhaps there are a few things they could have done differently to make it more fun, but it's just difficult to build a new stadium for a team to call home when the team just doesn't have much history to build around. Many of the new stadiums these days focus on modern architecture and how they can best display snippets of the team's history along the concourse walkway. The Nationals really didn't have option. Hopefully one day they will be able to replace some of the displays of Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle with images of Ryan Zimmerman and some other to-be Nationals Great.
Just for fun, here's my Mastercard commercial from last night:
15 minute Metro ride from Foggy Bottom to Navy Yard: Surprisingly painless.
90 minute wait on line to get into the stadium because Secret Service only set up 3 metal detectors at the first base entrance: Unshockingly excruciating.
30 seconds of boos as the President strolled to the mound to throw the "ceremonial" first pitch (which was way high): Priceless.
Labels: baseball
posted by elanit | 7:58 AM
3 Comments:
they boo-ed Bush?!
Awe.some.
They booed the President of the US in Washington DC? How rude!
I'm of the camp "You don't have to cheer,but you shouldn't boo". Also known as the "You don't have to respect the man, but you should respect the position". I think a small smathering of cheers (and a lot of silence) would have spoken more than the fight of cheers and boos that rained down at the same time.
As for the history, there is a area in front of the Home Plate Gate with years of significant dates in Washington Baseball history. I believe that this is where the statues of Walter Johnson, Josh Gibson and Frank Howard will go up. The fancy-shmancy club for the $325 seats has the final line from the 1924 World Series as decoration behind the bar. When there are not so many people around, walk around the lowest deck and you'll see some more stuff.
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