SNV's Opening Night Thoughts

Semi-randomly arranged, Peter-King-style:

Food!

The food I tried at RFK - a hot dog and Italian sausage - was awful. Adding to the misery was the fact that the first time I tried to get said Italian sausage, they had run out and it was a 10-minute wait to get one, forcing me to the hot dog option. What, you didn't expect a sellout?

Food is a key part of the ballpark experience. It's also something that can be improved without building a new stadium. We need better food, fast.

Fun!

DM, Dexy's and I had a GREAT time at the game, highlighted by a number of great "buck sez" bets. DM might write on this more, but my personal favorite was my bet that there would be a broken bat in the 4th inning. I went down to defeat, but it was a fun one nevertheless. DM's favorite was when I said "buck sez this inning [the top of the 6th] finishes by 8:38!" and DM took it. Since the scoreboard was tracking seconds (see more on scoreboard later), it was relatively exciting. But Glaus's walk pretty much sealed the deal and I handed a GW to DM.

Fame!

There were numerous celebrities or quasi-celebrities sitting around us, including John McCain, George Will, Darrell Green, Bob Novak and Fred Barnes. We had as good or better seats than all but John McCain, who was wearing a D-Backs hat anyway and likely was not sitting in his own seats.

I do not regret for an instant that I'm not famous. Being famous really sucks.

Foul Balls!

None. Damn.

Flaws!

The most glaring flaws were related to the scoreboard. Oh, let me count the flaw!

1. No out-of-town scoreboard. Inconceivable.
2. On the left field scoreboard, it was 11-3 Nats in the top of the 9th. No kidding. Of course, that was only slightly worse than the 6-0 they had in previous innings.
3. Pitch Speed: [we never did see a pitch speed. How about pitch count?]
4. The lack of an error was recognized on the scoreboard was, for most of the game, recognized by a blank rather than a "0." Bush league.
5. K Count - it was up for most of the game, taking up critical scoreboard space. Making things worse, it was wrong for most of the game.

Although most of these thoughts are critical, it was fantastic to watch a baseball game in DC. RFK is a strange stadium from a different era, but as long as there is grass between the lines, and players on the field, you can't not love the fun at the old ball park.