A National Pastime (3rd in a series of 30)

The third stadium in my tour of MLB ballparks was Nationals Park in Washington D.C. The visit was on Sunday July 3rd, 2011. I know, I know it is 2013 now. My bad. Better late than never...

On the stadium visit, Cait and I were accompanied by Nate and Maryn Forney and Beth Flowers. We also got to meet up with some other life long Bucco fan, Sam Modico.

Field: Nationals Park opened in 2008 with a seating capacity around 41,500. It is located 2 miles directly south of the Capital Building, near the Navy Yard. Yet, it faces away from the merging Potomac and Anacostia Rivers. I bring this up because from inside the stadium, you have no idea where you are located. Wouldn't it be great to be able to see a fly ball with the US Capital, Monuments, etc in the background or have a home run ball splash into the Potomac? Announcers would love either scenario, "That guy has some Potomac Power!" or "Only Lincoln has a chance to catch that one! GOODBYE!" Instead, the stadium faces a billion cliche and boring office buildings. 

As for the park and field, they were still very clean/new and the playing field looked flawless. The dimensions were standard and symmetrical, ~335' down the foul lines and 402' in center. I thought they did a great job designing left center-field stands, where The Red Porch is located (see picture on right). It is a full service restaurant that makes normally boring seats into a unique and specialized area. On the contrary, the design of right center-field is an eye sore. It houses the necessary but ugly auxiliary entrance, which is adjacent to the classy and well maintain turf that makes up the batter's eye. Most stadiums hide this sort of entrance in one of the outfield corners instead of the middle of viewers eye. 

Lastly, I should mention that Nationals Park was the first LEED certified "green" stadium in America. This was most visible on the roofs of the concession stands were they had sod to reduce heating and cooling cost.  Very cool and innovated, which puts it just above "average." Overall rating 9/15 

Food:

The thing to eat at Nationals Park was Ben's Chili Bowl. Did I mention that it was like 100 degrees with humidity, not a cloud in the sky and absolutely no air circulation? Could molten hot chili with a south of the Mason Dixon line spice possibly be the worst food item to eat? The answer is no. I decided to hedge my bets and go for Ben's Chili Cheese Dog (shot of Pepto was 50 cents extra). I paired it with a Leinenkugel's Summer Shandy to help cool me off. (side note: the service at the beer stand was awful. Nate and I were second in line and it took literally 20 mins to get a beer. There were multiple employees texting instead of working.-1 pt)
The Chili Cheese Dog was rather delicious, but it didn't really "hit the spot" in the middle of summer.  Unless the spot was my sagging Jockey Briefs... Overall, rating 6/10.

Fans: I have realized that this is one of the hardest categories to judge based on the circumstance of the game. What time of year is it? Is the Home team in contention? Weeknight versus weekend? So, I have decided to make this section only worth 5 pts and bumped up the food category to 10 pts. That being said, this Nationals team was prior to contention with Strasburg and Bryce Harper in 2012. As the picture at the top of the page shows, the crowds during the middle of the season were average. I didn't get heckled at all. I never felt nervous or that I was entering enemy territory (I felt this way in Philly, NY and Detriot). Also, the Pirates jumped out to a 8-0 lead in the 2nd inning, also limiting the excitement for the home town fans. And did I mention it was 100 degrees? Rating of 1/5.

Total score of 16/30.

My lovely and willing wife, who accompanies me to ballparks across the US!

Up Next: Comerica Park in Detriot