Your 2011 Washington Nationals

7/4 - Chicago

Mon, 04 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0400

Commitment to baseball, this one. Kate and I (and the two poor schlubs in our car) woke up at 7am in the middle of nowhere on the Northern Neck and drove three hours home to get there mostly in time for a 1pm start. I wore my affectatiously douchey red-white-blue hooped polo shirt, posed for a GQ photo by an abandoned church door, and then got completely upstaged with texts from my little brother detailed his trip to the Invasion of the Pines wearing flag pants and a puffy colonial-style shirt.

Werth got booed; Zimmermann came back for his first game off the DL as a pinch-hitter that took a walk without lifting his bat off his shoulder and was promptly lifted for a runner, in a move that made a lot less sense when the game (on a stupidly hot day) went into 10 innings and the bullpens burned through 12 pitchers. Livo and Marquis both pinch-hit ahead of Ramos (continuing my streak of seeing Marquis). Kate and I didn’t make it the whole way - in the heat and hangover, we gave up after 9 and found out about the victory via text message, decrying our lack of commitment to baseball to see a walkoff wild pitch.

6/23 - Seattle

Thu, 23 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0400

Getaway day baseball, don’t tell my boss.

Remembered only the afternoon beforehand that my friend PMac was coming down from New York with his buddy for the express purpose of day drinking and creepily hitting on Arlington girls. It was a dreary morning, but ameliorated gradually over the day (sunglasses were a good bring), as I met PMac and Juice* at the Bullpen and sipped on the finest aluminum Bud Light Southeast had to offer. Eventually made our way into the Red Loft for alcoslushies and more beer and at some point we realized we were watching a baseball game and Marquis (AGAIN) was pitching a blinder. 0-0, but he carried a no-hitter into the sixth while PMac shat bricks, considering he was supposed to be doing the highlight packages tonight and the MLB.com studio was back in Manhattan. Meanwhile, Michael Pineda wasn’t doing so poorly himself. Went into the 9th 0-0, PMac and Juice looked at their watches and advocated going back to Arlington for happy hour, but we were rewarded with a walkoff and the Nationals going over .500 for the first time since April after winning 11 of 12 games.

On the way back home - “wait, Riggleman quit?”

*- not a proper name, but I don’t think he ever gave his real one

6/17 - Baltimore

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0400

Hey, it’s been a while.

Game 2 of the holiday three-pack (so I can score “Merry Christmas” points with the ladyfriend into the middle of the summer… that’s how that works, right?) and you couldn’t have picked a more beautiful evening up until ten minutes before gametime when the clouds rolled in ominously and five minutes before gametime when the lightning started and two minutes before gametime when the skies opened like a trapdoor and half the grounds crew went spelunking under the tarp. Fortunately Kate and I spent the hour’s rain delay watching the storm beneath the awning at the Red Porch - we were jammed up against the top railing but were dry, even if I could hold out my hand and have it prune from the rain.

Eventually, baseball, and Marquis did well through five - even scored a run, as I’m want to see him do. Left in the middle of the 5th with a 4-2 lead and Coffey came Katamari Damacying out of the bullpen the let the Orioles tie up the game. The Nats, though, came back in the bottom of the 6th and took a 7-4 lead that held up the rest of the way. Two and a half highlights:

1. A dozen or so kids from Severna Park in Under Armor trying, really obnoxiously, to start off the wave. “No! Try again! Everyone stand up! We got to do it!” Never went further than three sections. They left in the middle of the 6th amidst a circlejerk of high fives.

2. “Hey! Andruw! Andruw Jones! Aaaaaaaaaaahhhhndruw! You’re 43rd all time in RBIs for major league baseball players whose last name is Jones! If your last name was Mantle you’d be second!”

2 1/2. “Hey! Andrum! Your name is spelt with a U! That’s weird. I… I got nothing.” Woman sitting adjacent, to Kate: “He’s really drunk, isn’t he?” Kate: “No, he’s sober, he just does this.”

5/15 - Florida

Sun, 15 May 2011 00:00:00 -0400

My parents were supposed to come down from New York to visit, then they cancelled on me, then they said they’d come down again, then they looked at the weather forecast and decided to take a miss, then they decided to come down anyway, so they/the ladyfriend/myself went to the Sunday afternoon game. Good to know where I get my decisiveness from. Even though it was supposed to thunderstorm (and later rained something fierce), we emerged from the Navy Yard Metro to cloudless blue skies and 78 degree weather. Okay, it’ll play.

Bought some $10 seats we never used and showed my parents the routine (spend two innings drinking at the Red Loft balcony, then pick your seats from what’s available). They added the brilliant wrinkle of stopping at the bar below and ordering food for innings 3 and 4. By the time we finished our third beers and a half smoke (Dad was sadly unimpressed by the only local DC cuisine) we were wondering why we dressed for April weather when it felt like July and watched the rest from section 200-something covered by shade by the foul pole in left.

Nationals cruised - scored 6 runs in the first inning (Jason Marquis representing with a 2-out, 2-run double) for free wings. Marquis and the bullpen made it a little shady in the 7th with the tying run at the plate, but they got out of it. Didn’t want to subject my parents to too much of the post-game Metro crush, or the long-if-you’re-not-from-DC walk to Capitol South, so I left the game early for the first time all season. Kind of disappointed in you, ~~Dad~~ Kyle.

4/30 - New York

Sat, 30 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0400

There’s little better than getting a last minute reprieve from a late-night code push when your baseball team is at home. Grabbed the lady and a pair of $5 seats while we waited for Will and Cody to bike over (they made it despite Cody losing a flip-flop on North Capitol Street); played Rick Ankiel sudoku by writing “E”s and “L”s on every surface within fifteen feet of our program. Spent two innings on the CF deck before descending to the first base side- got my first rejection from an usher in two plus seasons of seat thievery. And that’s mostly because Kate and Will stopped to talk to him, despite what they’ll say about getting caught. Which was disconcerting until we walked one section over and got in. A tight Nats lead (two solo HRs from Ramos) got tighter as the night went on, until Tom “you didn’t spell it right the first time” Gorzelanny started leaking. When the Mets sent up Scott Hairston- Jerry Hairston’s brother. This led to comedy: “Heaaaaaaaaaay Scott Hairston! You are THE WORST Hairston! Our Hairston is so much better!” This led to three innings of recidivist Hairston memes culminating in singing soccer chants to Jerry Hairston and Kate getting “I (heart) Hairston” written on her shoes, and him responding by trying to blow a dribbler down the third base line foul. It didn’t work and I’m pretty sure our bullpen blew up again so we lost. I’m still stunned we didn’t get kicked out.

4/15 - Milwaukee

Fri, 15 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0400

This game cost negative two dollars. (Ordered a $4 Miller Lite at a bar on Thursday, they handed me a free ticket for the game today. The ticket came with a free $6 Miller Lite which tasted about 50% more luxurious.)

Met up with some friends who complained that they had to buy seats for the game, whereas I simply got in for nothing and walked down to where they were sitting in the top of the second. (“…and you can, too!” “Well, it helps you that you’re not a minority or a shifty-looking bearded anarchist.” I suppose they’ve a point.) Nats created three runs from nothing with the bottom of their order in the second - the Brewers walked Gorzelanny, with the bases loaded, on four pitches. I showed people my resume/baseball-reference.com tribute. Everyone made “your clothing line is ugly” jokes at Ryan Braun’s expense. It got really cold. Suddenly it was the ninth inning and Burnett fluked a save (strikeout, strikeout, double, bloop single that barely dropped). We ended up walking to the Red Porch (about half indoors and sort of warm) for the 10th inning, and the Brewers shortstop had a two-base throwing error to basically give us the game and my first home win.

Home games attended: 3/7 (Record: 1-2)

Ticket cost: $7.17/game

4/2 - Atlanta

Sat, 02 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0400

Went with the ladyfriend again since we didn’t have much else to do on a closer-to-chilly-than-warm Sunday afternoon. The platonic form of Hoodie Weather, but it didn’t stop us from buying the first alcoslushies of the new season. Nats had won the day before and played well in both games so far, so I figured there’d be a crowd, and there was at least 20,000 folks in attendance, with maybe only a quarter wondering where all the cherry blossoms were. Then the Nats fell apart in the sixth and their bullpen bled six runs in the seventh and I got to move up to front row of scoreboard seating so I could heckle Jayson Heyward for having the middle name “Adenolith” and being from North Jersey. I think we lost 11-2. It was a nice day.

Home games attended: 2/3 (Record: 0-2)

Ticket cost: $11.75/game

3/31 - Atlanta

Thu, 31 Mar 2011 12:00:00 -0400

Baseball!

Went with the ladyfriend for the first of three games in the “Holiday 3-pack” I got her for Christmas, since when it’s the depths of winter you have grand visions of Opening Day on the last day of March being warmer than Christmas. Sometimes it isn’t. Spent the whole day freezing and regretting our respective choices of chucks as footwear. A $5 pregame tall boy of Pilsner Urquell lasted me into the fifth inning, but it didn’t get warm so hey, there’s that, also: baseball!

The Nats ran out their new-look lineup (literally, ran them out from the centerfield gate through some pro-wrestling pyrotechnics and an honor guard of little kids) and couldn’t hit, although our pitching was solid. Livan Hernandez leaked a two out run in the first, a Jayson Heyward solo shot that barely got over the fence in center in the second, and that was your ballgame. 2-0, time of game two hours and thirty minutes. Kate and I spent two and a half whole innings waiting in line for half-smokes at Ben’s. Baseball!

Anyway, this blog. This is an attempt to chronicle my experience with Your! 2011! Washington! Nationallllls! As an expatriated Yankees fan that doesn’t figure to move out of DC for a long time, I figure I owe to my adopted city to transfer over some of my baseball loyalties to the local team, even if (or especially because) they’re rather terrible but figure by all accounts to be markedly less so in 2012 and beyond. So this may be the last year for a while that I’ll be able to consistently get cheap/free tickets to Nationals games so sparsely attended that I can get drunk and yell at the players from the fourth row and they’ll hear me, and I’ll get to feel like part of a community and a true-blooded American all the same, preferably for just a couple hundred bucks. Baseball!

Games attended: 1/1 (Record: 0-1)

Ticket cost: $12.50/game