The Nationals

I went to my first Nationals baseball game last Thursday. Baseball moves much faster in person, mainly because you don’t have to watch it. You can eat, drink, talk to friends, and there’s a game on to fill in the lulls in conversation.

Baseball is a happy game. It’s laid-back and demands little from fans. Cheering is more joy than obligation. If the team doesn’t come through, it’s just one out of 162 games. And in the middle of the sixth inning, everyone gets up and sings together.

There’s one major exception to ballpark joy. The pitchers. The pitchers look like they are in prison. They are trapped in the bullpen at the outer field wall, their forlorn faces pressed against a mesh fence, their fingers curled around the metal weave. They know each other too well to talk and live in hope that a fly ball will pop up near them and they ask the outfielder how his kids are doing before the smell of his sweat leaves the air.

Tickets for National games are very affordable. The price of a beer is almost as much as a ticket in a cheap seat. I tried holding off buying anything, but I broke down after being enchanted with a sign for “Mom’s Old Fashioned Fresh-Squeezed Lemonade”.

Here’s the secret to making $5.50 “Mom’s Fresh-Squeezed Lemonade”:

1. Fill cup to rim with ice.

2. Drop half of lemon on top.

3. Fill with sugar water.

Mmm, mmm–just like Mom used to make it. If my Mom were a crack whore.

After the game I had the opportunity to partake in one of my favorite activites: being part of a mob. It was free umbrella night at the ballpark, and they waited until after the game to hand them out so rabid D.C. fans, notorious for keeping it real Detroit style, wouldn’t stab each other in the hearts with the rounded metal tips in a Miller Lite-fueled drunken rage.

The solution, for the safety of the fans, was to put eight umbrellas in each rope-tied box, put the hundreds of boxes on three tables, and surrounded the boxes with a metal gate while mobs of people shoved each other and reached out their arms over the gate like it was Free Cabbage Day in the former Soviet Union. Once someone got an umbrella, he or she, harkening back to the nobility of the Knights of the Round table, would lower it like a lance and ram through the crowd. I shook my head in sadness, and then darted through the wake.

My progress was hated until one enterprising fan had a clever idea: reach over the gate and pass out the umbrellas himself. The boxes flew open and people grabbed handfuls of umbrellas, usually at the same time, ensuring a tugging contest with an unseen opponent. It was disgusting. I got two. Some old lady took my third one.

Even without Free Umbrella Night, I might go back to a Nationals game. The crowd is enthusiastic and it’s a relaxing way to spend an evening. Although if the Nationals wanted to seal the deal, Free Numchuck Night would do it.