This won't become a baseball blog. For one thing, I don't really know baseball. I know that it's a simple game (you hit the ball, you catch the ball, you throw the ball). But since we lacked a team here through my formative years, I never learned it the way I did hockey and football.
Forgive me my current euphoria. I have a giggling teenage crush on the Nationals right now.
I had the game on Thursday night on tv in one room and radio in the other, so I heard both sets of announcers comment...sounding a bit disconcerted...about how the upper deck of RFK was actually moving. Ooooh, yeah. That actually freaked me out a little first time I felt it (at a Redskins game, of course), but ain't it great?
I laughed when I read Tom Boswell on Friday:
However, it wasn't just the box seats that bounced. The entire upper deck, including the press box, began the same unmistakable swaying up and down that marked so many touchdowns in the Redskins' glory days. Then you could see the whole upper deck sway. The Washington crowd hasn't quite got the knack of it yet, not after one game. But the fans are learning fast. All that was required was one Washington run after 33 vacant seasons and the place rocked on its old hinges."Holy [expletive]," said team president Tony Tavares, who watched the game in the presidential box with President Bush and Commissioner of Baseball Bud Selig.
"It does scare you when you first feel it," said Tony Siegle, the Nationals' assistant general manager. "Does that happen often?"
I hope it will. Thing is, I was happy just to have a team...because we'd been fighting for the Expos, they have sort of covered them the last season or two on the radio station I listen to, so I have been vaugely aware that they were not terribly good. I know it's early yet, but first place! (Okay, tied.)
Even though it isn't technically allowed even under the casual Friday dress code, I wore my Nats sweatshirt to the office yesterday. And all day people were saying things like "Great shirt!" and "Did you go to the game? Wasn't that incredible?" or giving me thumbs-up signs.
(And these are the coworkers who teased me about my Redskins loyalty.)
I'm a homer, I admit it. If the Nationals don't win another game all season I'll still be rooting for them. (In all my giddy happiness this week, I did have a thought: in Montreal they were playing some nights to "crowds" of 3,000. I really feel bad for those poor guys.)
This morning, Victor was leaving for class wearing his Orioles jacket. I frowned. Peter Angelos actually turned him off the O's a couple seasons ago, but it's time for new clothes, so I ordered him this.
Posted by Nic at April 16, 2005 08:09 AM