A better record of my family’s road trip following the Mets can be found in my online photo galleries posted in the side bar to the left of these posts, but before too much time goes by, I did want to just mention a few things about what will have been my final visit to RFK Stadium.
Believe me, I shed no tears upon departing that charmless place. But with the Nationals making a big to-do about their new stadium opening next year in Anaconda, er–AnaCOSTIA, I was well aware that this was my final opportunity to catch any baseball or Presidents’ Races at this locale.
We had terrific seats for both games: a StubHub purchase secured our seats eleven rows behind the Nationals dugout for Saturday night’s game. (Here’s a sweat-drenched Dmitri Young returning from the field to the dugout.) And for Sunday afternoon’s
game we had the treat of using my husband’s company’s seats right behind homeplate, with a perfect view of El Duque’s wind-up.
While I love our season tickets in the Mezzanine behind homeplate at Shea, I’ve found that that’s one of the fun things about taking road trips for me: getting to sit in another part of a ballpark to get a different perspective. While I might miss angles–and sometimes even plays–I often see other things that I would not normally see from our regular seats or get a better view of a particular play(s) than the view I have from our regular seats.
While I might prefer our normal vantage point, it’s kinda fun for one game here or there to see things from another viewpoint.
Of particular delight for me on Saturday night was seeing all of the action around third base.
We saw Reyes steal third, saw Moises (and others) approach, tag, and round third–with Sandy Almomar wildly waving his arm, giving him the green light.
While I’ve seen all of this from a distance and, close-up on television, there’s a certain excitement being right there on the line right on top of the action!
The Mets may have won both of the games we were at, but the Nationals fans were really into it, booing down any chants of "Let’s Go Mets" that got started.
There is definitely some pride there and some fans who desperately want a chance to compete. Maybe with a new stadium, the somewhat limited fanbase the franchise has now will expand and the team will command more interest and respect in this mostly football-centered city.
Whatever the Nationals decide to leave behind at RFK at the end of this season, they simply MUST bring along the four Presidents for the Presidents Races. The size of those guys is so astounding as to be positively surreal and hysterical at the same time.
And maybe–just once before they leave RFK Stadium–Abe, George, and Tom should let poor Teddy Roosevelt win a race just once…poor guy. He’s beginning to give the Rough Riders a bad name.
Perfect Pitch 
