If anybody saw someone in a
gorilla suit on the
jumbo-tron in the
8th inning, that was
me. I wore the red
Curly W shirt over it, that was given out when the Lerners took over. I was sitting in the
Diamond Club, behind home plate, in the
5th row, directly in line with the pitcher and batter. I never had seats that good in my entire lifetime. I was blown away at how close I was to home plate. I could see the grass blades that had the white Curly W painted on them behind the plate. I was sitting five seats away from the
GEICO Caveman, one of the actual guys who has appeared in the TV commercials. He was jumping up every time the Nationals did anything good, rooting for them. He officiated the RIGGED President's race at the finish line. (I probably embarrased the Nationals officials by yelling
RIGGED at the TOP OF MY LUNGS,
BEFORE the Presidents even got into the outfield, and for the ENTIRE
RIGGED race! I then
BOOED George Washington for his TAINTED PHONY win!
The GEICO Caveman got a big kick when I put on the gorilla suit, and tried to get us posing together for the Jumbo-tron. But there were no cameras around, so we posed for photos together.
LOTS of people took photos with me. Everybody wanted me to pose with them, as a reminder of Opening Day at the new place. The Gorilla (Rally Monkey?) became an instant celebrity.
I was SO close to the plate that I'm pretty sure the players could hear the encouragement being yelled at them by me and another fan. As soon as I put the gorilla suit on, Ray King
walked his first batter. So I wondered if he saw me and it threw him off. King did look thinner, but he could NOT find the plate with almost EVERY pitch. Not close. I was amazed from that angle at how well all the pitchers threw. That stuff looked difficult to hit. I think Zimmerman simply expected it to be that way, and slammed that homer out anyway. We were yelling for him before he did it.
People in the
Diamond Club seats behind home plate have free access to three clubs there, and a LOT of people were sitting at a bar or at tables eating (good) food in the President's Restaurant behind home plate, which has lots of TVs. They had cheesecake! That and the fact that some of those folks left after the 6th inning explains the empty seats behind home plate. The tickets were NOT sold out anyway, and these were the ONLY tickets available on-line Sunday afternoon. But frankly, the mob of people in the bar were not really watching the game. Most of them were just hanging out at this bar, as they would at any other private bar. We'll take their money...
People were buying me free beers in the President's Lounge
after the game, and still taking photos with me in the gorilla suit. A good looking woman (there were MANY) offered to KISS me, if I'd take off the mask... (LOL, alcohol...)
I did NOT tape the game on TV, and I forgot that it was NOT on MASN. So I don't know if ESPN showed me on TV in that gorilla suit, or if I could be seen behind home plate. My brother probably has it on Tivo, but I didn't even know I would be attending until 3:30 pm the day of the game. WHAT AN EXPERIENCE!
nats2playoffs