Happy Hour at the Ballpark

Until the Nationals came to DC last season, I had never lived less than a 45 minute drive to the ballpark. I grew up north of Dayton, where the drive to Cincy was more than an hour - an hour and a half when I moved in high school. Even when I was going to college at Miami U, Cincy was still an agonizing hour drive, sometimes less if you were fortunate enough to not get behind the slowmoving vehicles that rotted on the two-lane road between Oxford and the Queen City. I also spent two years in Monterey, California, a two-hour hike up to San Fran and the Giants, more often due to the crazy Californians who shouldn't be allowed to get behind the wheel of a car than the actual distance between the two cities. My first two baseball seasons in DC were spent going up to Baltimore, a 45 minute drive, unless you are trying to hit a weekday evening game, where snarling rush hour traffic makes it impossible to see first pitch, or even the first inning. (Sometimes the first three!)

So, you can imagine the joy that visited me when we finally learned that baseball was coming to DC, a mere 20 minute Metro ride from my office to the stadium. When the urge to see baseball hits, I simply walk the two blocks to McPherson Square, hop on the blue line, and go. That's what happened last night, when I got an email message asking me to go to the game, one that was not to be missed because Pedro "Beanball" Martinez was pitching.

Oh, how I longed to see him get crushed, to have the Nats score a gazillion times in the first inning, and then witness him getting beaned at the plate in The Toe. A hearty round of boos rang throughout the stadium every time his shadow approached the field.

Alas, my wish was not to be granted. Pedro did not give up a hit until the fourth inning, when Vidro took him deep. The Nats got to him again in the sixth, loading the bases with nobody out, but Pedro reached down and pulled out some extra evil and got out of the inning without letting a run score. He gave a sarcastic wave to us when he left the field in the eighth after pitching what I hate to admit was a brilliant game.

Sigh...another loss, another pathetic lack of offense. I'm not too upset, however. I got to go to happy hour at the ballpark.