My first (and probably last) night at Nationals Field

Some thoughts from a Nats/Mets game at Nationals Field:

Merloni called attending a Nats game "like watching a game at a sports bar with really nice tv's." Well, they upgraded the tvs. Slightly.

Merloni covered the new stadium, and he pretty much nailed it. It's a decent stadium. It's not Shea, and more importantly it's not the wasteland known as RFK. But it's also not Fenway, PNC Bank, or even the new ballpark in Cincinnati.

My three main beefs with the ballpark:
1. One of the new perks of the ballpark was supposed to be that you can always see the game when walking around the stadium. And that's true, if the whole game takes place in and around shallow centerfield. But it's nearly impossible to see home plate from most of the walkway angles, even if you make an effort to do so.

2. The metro ride to and from the game wasn't really that bad. It only took about 30 minutes to get from Van Ness to Navy Yard, which is good time for those who know DC. Unfortunately, it took me about that long to get from the stadium entrance to upper deck seats. Every stadium should have an escalator that takes you from the entrance to the upper deck. (Do most stadiums have this? I know that Yankee Stadium doesn't but Giants Stadium does.) Either way, I don't need to pass all the local but pricey food stations.

3. This is a pet peeve with many scoreboards across the country. A new state of the art scoreboard needs to have the following at all times:
1. score
2. pitcher's current stats and up-to-minute ERA
3. batter's season stats
4. along with the batter's results for the current game
A surprising amount of scoreboards, including that at Nats Field doesn't have these things.

As for the actual game: just your usual Jose Lopez grand slam, 6 rbi outing. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Weird thing with the Nats Lineup-Merloni noticed that the Nats lineup, #5-8 was Wily Mo Pena, Aaron Boone, Willie Harris, Wil Nieves. Which is to say, Red Sock, Yankee, Red Sock, Yankee. And let's just say there's a reason none of these guys are on those teams anymore.

And the surprising thing about said castoffs: Nieves was 2 for 3 with 2 runs, 1 rbi, and Wily Mo only struck out twice, didn't homer, and didn't make an egregious error in the field. Or any error for that matter.

A fun experience overall, but given that I'm heading back to Jersey for good in two weeks, I'm ok with never coming back again.