National Landmarks and Pastimes

Today, Mr. Selbo and Mr. Janssen and Mr. Weinhold and Mr. Hillhouse went to Washington. Despite all voting for the Democrat in the last presidential election, they let us get remarkably close to the White House (as always, click the picture for a larger view).


Although, David began to look awfully suspicious when he whipped out his binoculars and peered through the front gate. He thinks he saw Bush walk by a window in his boxers.


The flag was flying on the White House, which means our fearful leader was in his office that day. Probably just filming another guest appearance on 'Deal or No Deal.'


We were hoping the president might see our baseball signs as he peered back at us with his own set of binoculars, and that'd he'd offer us the presidential suite at the game tonight. Alas, we went to the White House and all we got was this lousy photo.


We saw a bunch of other monuments in D.C. as well, but I'll let the history buff write about those. Let's focus on the District's most important monument: the one built to honor baseball. No joke, the place was built to resemble and blend in with the other capitol memorials.

It doesn't look too bad from the outside, if you ask me. A little drab, but still nice.


The inside of the park isn't jaw-dropping, but it's not revolting, either. It felt much bigger than the park in Cincinnati, but its large grandstands made it feel like one of the old cookie cutter stadiums, even though it's more open-air.


Here's the view from our seats in the upper deck. The Nationals offer one of the best deals in baseball -- these seats for $10. There's even a few sections for $5. In the words of one die-hard Nats fan (if there is such a thing) that we met on the D.C. subway, the park is "nice enough." It's not a place that you'd go to just to see the stadium, but it sure beats the Nationals' old digs at RFK Memorial Stadium.


An inning into the game and the good guys (the ones with the Birds on the Bat on their gray jerseys) were ahead 4-0. Three innings later, the rains came.


And came and came and came. It rained -- hard -- for well more than an hour.


I spent a solid chunk of my Saturday coloring these signs, but we couldn't protect them from the water. I consider these to be my greatest artistic achievement. Believe me, I was terrible at block letters in art class, so I was rather proud of how they turned out here.


I guess I shouldn't have bought the washable markers. But, a Budweiser always makes things better!


Needless to say, the hour and 45 minute rain delay paid enormous dividends. Little did we know that tonight would turn into 'Upgrade Your Seat to the Expensive Sections Night.'


Once the rain started, I was worried that we were going to miss out on the coolest Nationals Park feature of all: The Presidents Race. Four giant caricatures of this country's greatest leaders, running around the stadium like Milwaukee's Sausages. Awesome, yet somewhat creepy.



As I mention in the video, it's only fair that Thomas Jefferson wins the race on the night fans get free T-shirts with his mug and a silly quote on it.


T-shirt nights are also great to plan on super rainy days. It's like getting a T-shirt and towel all in one.

We sat in these seats for all of three batters before MORE rain came. This time, it only lasted 20 minutes or so. Thankfully, they finally resumed play, so the Cardinals could finish their schlacking of the lowly Nats.

At this point, there were about 1,000 fans left of the announced crowd of 26,000 (3/4 of the ones remaining were Cardinals fans, too). So, we upgraded again -- this time to three rows behind the Redbirds' dugout.


We got to see the final four innings VERY up close and personal, soaked signs in tow.


It was great being in the nation's capital on the day an African-American sealed up a major party nomination for the first time in this country's history. This young fan, on the other hand, has his head REALLY on straight when it comes to voting.


Did I mention we sat really, really close to the field?


I have a man crush on Adam Wainwright. He waved at me. I got excited.


I still get goosebumps when I think about that sick nasty curveball he threw Carlos Beltran to win Game 7 of the 2006 NLCS.

Rick Ankiel. He's good.


In the end, a great day ended much better than expected. I almost felt bad for the players -- with so few fans left, I'm sure they all felt like they were playing Single-A ball again. But, unless you shell out $200, you never get to sit where we were. It's definitely worth sitting through 2 hours and 45 minutes of rain delays to see 2 hours of baseball from that angle.