Baseball has always been a big part of my relationship with my husband (sounds pretty weird coming from a girl huh?).
My husband grew up playing baseball and actually went to college on a baseball scholarship.
Right after I surprised Mr. A with O’s tickets
A few months into our relationship, I surprised him with season tickets to the Orioles for his birthday. We spent most of our summer that first year at Camden Yards so baseball really has a soft spot in my heart.
It was no surprise to me that when the Atlanta Braves (the hubby’s home team) came to play the Nationals this weekend that he wanted to see the game.
So we spent our Sunday hanging out at Nationals Park watching the Braves getting killed by the Nats.
We intended on walking up to the park to buy tickets that day (we’ve done it plenty of times at Camden) but it turned out to be a huge hassle. Apparently, the Nats really like to price gouge tickets so on the day of they only allow you to buy standing room only or $100 tickets from their ticket office.
As we were standing in line to get to the ticket office, we spent a lot of time arguing about what to do. Do we buy tickets online and just eat the ticketmaster fee? Or trust the scalpers? Or do we just get standing room only tickets? There was a lot of confusion and hubbub.
In the middle of our back and forth, a man got my attention and said, “Ma’am I’ve been trying to get your attention for an hour. You can have these tickets.”
A stranger had offer us amazing left field lower level tickets for free. We tried to give him some money and he hesitantly took $20 from us and told us just to remember that we would be sitting next to them.
Our baseball neighbors and ticket givers
It turned out our baseball neighbors for the next couple hours were the two sweetest people I’ve ever met at a sporting event.
And they gave us this incredible view for free.
It’s amazing how much brighter your day can get from a simple, selfless gesture.
The best part about our seats was that we were fairly close to the Braves’ third baseman, Chipper Jones.
He’s actually retiring this season, which was the reason Mr. A wanted to go to this game so badly in the first place.
This was my first time at Nationals Park so while Mr. A was stalking Chipper I took a moment to absorb the park.
This park is designed to make you feel really close to the action. Even the nosebleed seats seemed close.
The one downside to having an intimate atmosphere is that the stadium itself is pretty enclosed and consequently pretty hot. It was only 80 degrees outside but it felt close to 90. I’m used to the Baltimore Breeze that comes in through the warehouse opening at Camden so this was a little hard to get used to.
One really cool feature of the park is the presidential race featuring everyone’s favorite presidents including George Washington, Abe Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt.
The fan enthusiasm at Nationals Park was also very palpable and thriving (you can tell I’ve been to too many Orioles games). DC surely did miss not having a team for all those years.
Despite the Braves playing pretty poorly, Mr. A still had a fantastic time watching his favorite team and seeing good ol’ Chipper for the last time.
While it was nice to expand my baseball venue horizons, I can still safely say that Camden Yards is still my favorite.
Even though the new stadium has fantastic energy and delicious food, the surrounding area leaves a lot to be desired. We walked past barbed wire fencing from our car to the ballpark…let’s just leave it at that
Although I’m not a Nats fan, I’ll always be happy to take Mr. A out to a ballgame. It’s where he’s happiest and that makes me happy.
Have you visited Nationals Park? What did you think?
P.S. If you are visiting Nationals Park, I highly recommend parking in the HH lot. It’s only $5 (cheaper than riding metro for us) and a 10 minute walk from the stadium. Just ignore the barbed wire