Author Topic: The ballpark is a summer sanctuary. Fans help explain why they missed it so much  (Read 674 times)

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Online welch

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I remember Dad taking me to Opening Day, 1954. We walked across the catwalk out to our seats in the upper deck along the LF line, then gasped at all the green, the perfect green, and the bunting dressing up the stadium. Now it's almost the same, although we walk around the concourse and usually climb to our seats. I still love Griffith Stadium, or my memories of it, but Nats Park is elegant in its own way.

What do you look forward to, WNFF?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/interactive/2021/mlb-fans-summer-sanctuary/?itid=hp-top-table-main

Offline Count Walewski

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Somebody once told me that everytime you go to a baseball game, you might see something you've never seen before.

I saw my first steal of home plate, my first All Star Game, and my first NLDS and NLCS games at Nats Park, plus numerous individual feats by amazing players, with Max Scherzer probably sticking in my mind the most. I still need to see a triple play and a player hit for the cycle in person and look forward to checking these off at some future game.

Online Five Banners

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Somebody once told me that everytime you go to a baseball game, you might see something you've never seen before.

I saw my first steal of home plate, my first All Star Game, and my first NLDS and NLCS games at Nats Park, plus numerous individual feats by amazing players, with Max Scherzer probably sticking in my mind the most. I still need to see a triple play and a player hit for the cycle in person and look forward to checking these off at some future game.

Still waiting on the triple play, and hopefully the Nats will be the one who turn it

Offline wj73

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The quote in the article about sitting in the hot sun with a cold beer?  That’s yours truly!  :D

Online Natsinpwc

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Still waiting on the triple play, and hopefully the Nats will be the one who turn it
I was at the game where Angel Pagan of the Mets started a triple play and also hit an inside the park home run. I believe it only has happened one other time.

Online Natsinpwc

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The quote in the article about sitting in the hot sun with a cold beer?  That’s yours truly!  :D
Nice.

Offline DCFan

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The quote in the article about sitting in the hot sun with a cold beer?  That’s yours truly!  :D

I didn't open the link until you said something but now we know who Welch is. :lol: And I know the mother and daughter in this article as well.

Offline OldChelsea

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The quote in the article about sitting in the hot sun with a cold beer?  That’s yours truly!  :D

And yours truly too (hopefully the in-stand vendors will still have those king-size cans of Stella).

Online Natsinpwc

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And yours truly too (hopefully the in-stand vendors will still have those king-size cans of Stella).
:clap:

Online imref

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The quote in the article about sitting in the hot sun with a cold beer?  That’s yours truly!  :D

Awesome.

Offline JCA-CrystalCity

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wow, Welch and WJ73!  I thought one of the pictures was familiar from the M&Gs. 

As for me, I kind of look forward to my pre-game rituals nearly as much as the games themselves.  Picking up a falafel at Max's (I'll miss the argument with BiL, who eventually admitted Max's was pretty good), then popping up to the loft and grabbing a beer while watching the visiting team hit, then walking around the 2d level to either go straight to my seats in 208 or, if it is a bit earlier, going up to the Gallery level and walking around to the ramps on the ramps on the LF side.  Taking in the views, then strolling to my seats and greeting the usher Susan.  Spotting WNFFers when I can, or other folks I know, then settling in for the game and occasionally blurting baseball thoughts to the folks I'm watching with, either in my group or neighbors ("I wish he wouldn't bunt here," "favorable matchup," "his velocity is off," "turn the lineup over and make them burn a reliever" ...).

Offline DCFan

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  • What are you dense?
Still waiting on the triple play, and hopefully the Nats will be the one who turn it

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CLE/CLE196807300.shtml

The last one that I cared about and for some reason it isn't on youtube. Ron Hansen, unassisted triple play.

Offline Count Walewski

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It's interesting, when I was a kid one of the things I most looked forward to with going to a ballgame was the food. I would arrive early, but you could already smell all the sausages and onions grilling, I would always get a big heaping thing of nachos with jalapenos, the preztels were bigger than the pretzels anywhere else, etc.

That's much less true as an adult, and not just because I have a cardiologist now. It seems that, on average, food outside the ballpark has improved much more than food inside the ballpark has improved. Nats Park actually seems to have some of the better food in MLB with that area of upscale concession stands on the second level in right field...though good luck dealing with the lines there!

Offline varoadking

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It's interesting, when I was a kid one of the things I most looked forward to with going to a ballgame was the food. I would arrive early, but you could already smell all the sausages and onions grilling, I would always get a big heaping thing of nachos with jalapenos, the preztels were bigger than the pretzels anywhere else, etc.

That's much less true as an adult, and not just because I have a cardiologist now. It seems that, on average, food outside the ballpark has improved much more than food inside the ballpark has improved. Nats Park actually seems to have some of the better food in MLB with that area of upscale concession stands on the second level in right field...though good luck dealing with the lines there!

Nothing beats a Vienna Beef Chicago Dog...with extra Sport Peppers...  ;)

Online Natsinpwc

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Nothing beats a Vienna Beef Chicago Dog...with extra Sport Peppers...  ;)
At Wrigley!

Offline Copecwby20

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I literally moved back here so I could watch the Nats play in person.


My current company was offering me jobs in California and Japan and nothing panned out. When they asked if I was willing to work somewhere else, my timid response of “Well, if I could get back to the National Capital Region, that would be great.” was met with an offer letter, significant income boost and relocation assistance within 2 hours. Apparently it is hard to convince people to move to this area if they don’t have to live here.


I could have stayed in Florida and watched the Jax Jumbo Shrimp struggle in mediocrity for years, all while not paying state income tax and all that. That’s not me. I needed to get back to the Nats.


There is not a physical barrier on this earth that could stop me from seeing the first game in front of our fans, in our ball park, since they won the World Series.


Online Natsinpwc

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I literally moved back here so I could watch the Nats play in person.


My current company was offering me jobs in California and Japan and nothing panned out. When they asked if I was willing to work somewhere else, my timid response of “Well, if I could get back to the National Capital Region, that would be great.” was met with an offer letter, significant income boost and relocation assistance within 2 hours. Apparently it is hard to convince people to move to this area if they don’t have to live here.


I could have stayed in Florida and watched the Jax Jumbo Shrimp struggle in mediocrity for years, all while not paying state income tax and all that. That’s not me. I needed to get back to the Nats.


There is not a physical barrier on this earth that could stop me from seeing the first game in front of our fans, in our ball park, since they won the World Series.
Welcome home.

They do have good baseball in Japan.





Offline MonsterUSMC

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Somebody once told me that everytime you go to a baseball game, you might see something you've never seen before.

I saw my first steal of home plate, my first All Star Game, and my first NLDS and NLCS games at Nats Park, plus numerous individual feats by amazing players, with Max Scherzer probably sticking in my mind the most. I still need to see a triple play and a player hit for the cycle in person and look forward to checking these off at some future game.
My first game back from Iraq in 2009, I went to a Nats-Mets game.  I saw Angel Pagan hit an inside the park HR.  That was something I had never seen in person before.  Granted, it was for the wrong team, but it was pretty cool to see live.

Offline MonsterUSMC

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  • GO NATS! GO TAR HEELS!!!

I literally moved back here so I could watch the Nats play in person.


My current company was offering me jobs in California and Japan and nothing panned out. When they asked if I was willing to work somewhere else, my timid response of “Well, if I could get back to the National Capital Region, that would be great.” was met with an offer letter, significant income boost and relocation assistance within 2 hours. Apparently it is hard to convince people to move to this area if they don’t have to live here.


I could have stayed in Florida and watched the Jax Jumbo Shrimp struggle in mediocrity for years, all while not paying state income tax and all that. That’s not me. I needed to get back to the Nats.


There is not a physical barrier on this earth that could stop me from seeing the first game in front of our fans, in our ball park, since they won the World Series.
If they're still looking for people to work in this area, I am retiring from the Marine Corps in June.  I am hoping I don't have to relocate.

Online Natsinpwc

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My first game back from Iraq in 2009, I went to a Nats-Mets game.  I saw Angel Pagan hit an inside the park HR.  That was something I had never seen in person before.  Granted, it was for the wrong team, but it was pretty cool to see live.
That was the game I referred to earlier.  Pagan also started a triple play.  I've only read about it happening once before in the 1950s although it's quite possible there were earlier cases (that someone did both).  And the Nats still won. 

Online welch

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  • The Sweetest Right Handed Swing in 1950s Baseball
- My favorite smell of baseball: the sweet smell of (Bond?) bread baking mixing with cigar smoke from all the fans. That's Griffith Stadium.

- Last time I saw the New Senators at DC Stadium? Don Lock leaping to snare a drive off the CF fence.

- First time I saw the New Nats? I had promised myself to see a game that first season, after all those years when DC had no team and fans were being siphoned away to our traditional enemies, the Baltimore Orioles. In 2005, I had a nasty heat attack about a week before the game I had tickets for. So, in 2006, even more determined, I took my wife and my Harmon Killebrew replica 1959-60 jersey, autographed, down to Washington. Having left her, happily reading, back at the hotel, I trudged through the heat. A day game in DC has to be hot, but the awful thing was to see that someone had built a statue of George Preston Marshall near the gate. Went to my seat in the upper deck in right field. Astonished to see so many fans...nobody sat in the upper deck for the New Senators, except a few smart people clustered above home plate. The Nats were playing the Yankees, a team I had come to follow during the Long Road Trip from 1972 through 2004. In the 9th inning, the Nats trailed by a run and I was sweating under the wool jersey. Nats got a runner on when a rookie third-baseman drove a ball over the left-field wall. I waved Killebrew's jersey, knowing, just certain, that the kid third-baseman from when I was little had come back to help another kid third-baseman. A worthy successor. Ryan Zimmerman us still my favorite Nat.

- 2019, mid-October, Game 3, NLDS against the Cardinals. Zimmerman was still there, although he had had to move to 1B. No bread-baking smells, and no cigar smoke. Nats Park so crowded that we gave up trying to get to any of the classy barbecue or sausage places. Daughter and I were in the RF stands when the Nats crushed the life out of the Cards. Nats were sure to go to the World Series -- something unimaginable in 1957 or 1965 or 2006.

I can't wait to get to Nats Park again.

Offline MonsterUSMC

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That was the game I referred to earlier.  Pagan also started a triple play.  I've only read about it happening once before in the 1950s although it's quite possible there were earlier cases (that someone did both).  And the Nats still won.
Yes!  I remember that game well.

Offline OldChelsea

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[...]They do have good baseball in Japan.[...]

Good beer too.