Alternate title: My Day at RFK. In my quest to visit every ballpark, I thought it a shame I had visited DC just days before April. Well what the hell, I'll just go have a look. I took the Metro to Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium and had a peek. "Tickets, Tickets," I heard.
HUH? It's still March.
Next to me on the walk up was a moustached man with a pony tail to his ass in a Nats cap and jacket. I asked if there was a game today.
He said "yeah, exhibition against the O's."
Any tix left you think?
Probably, why you want one? (He reaches into his jacket pocket.)
Yeah, how much?
Buy me a beer.
OK! Now I am sitting behind homeplate with some stranger in RFK watching the Nationals, and it starts to dawn on me... it's not so bad to be a shitty-team fan. He explains these tickets are only 20 bucks, and you can get in for 8. Food's cheap. Beer's cheap. What else do you want? The place is never full, so you can spread out and relax, and you never have to worry about a sellout. If you wanna see a game, just buy a ticket. Or just ask someone, maybe it'll cost you a beer.
Pretty soon I figured out, it wasn't all a good deal. I was quickly reminded that the Nationals were as promised a shitty team. We turned up in the 3rd and the Nats promptly gave up back-to-back crank jobs and put on a showcase of infield errors. Since there was no baseball in the district for 30 years or so, the fans had no idea what to do. On the rare occasion that the Washington pitcher would strike a guy out, people would go on with their conversations like they had never heard of strike 3.
One of the real highlights was the 7th inning stretch, led by Harry Canary, the lovable Caray-morphic blow up bird like-weird costume thing/person. They played a recording of Harry and everyone loved it. Harry Canary was actually a bigger star at this thing than Screech, the Nats Mascot, a tattered, dirty, and particularly short bald eagle. They stole a page from the Brewers playbook by having the Presidents race, but I think I missed it when I went to buy my $6.50 Red Hook ticket to the game.
No comments:
Post a Comment