I'm a pretty reflective person - some would call it emotional - and 
I have a ton of stuff to do before I leave on Saturday, yet I was not going to miss the final RFK game. At least I thought. I was not aware that the game started at 12:05. Seeing all of the fans arriving to the stadium at what I thought was fifty minutes early made me think Nationals fans actually do know how to attend baseball games after these three years. I was wrong. The flood of fans going to the stadium were going in late, because, as I found out, the game began one hour earlier than I had anticipated. Believe me, I was upset. I later found out that I missed the Nationals players handing out t-shirts at the gate. And I didn't get my t-shirt given to the first 20,000 fans who thought to check the game time before leaving for the ballpark. And then I found out that the game time was moved for stupid football! I hate that sport!
Since everything is slowass in DC, the will call line was no exception. I'm not sure how it is so difficult to find Smith in the S section or Jones in the J's, but my god, was it tough for those employees to use alphabetical order to find tickets for people. Tickets in hand finally, I entered the stadium for the last time in a rush because the game was going on! You have to understand that I never miss first pitch, and there it was, the bottom of the first inning, and the Nats were already up 1-0. It was such a gorgeous day, and the September sun cast interesting shadows across the stadium throughout the day. Was great for photos! There were few people who didn't have cameras out, and there were a lot of people - 40,000+ decided to show up for one last RFK fling. Gotta wear the rose-colored glasses for this baby!
Every moment I had spent in that stadium in the past three years came back to me as if I were living the past and present at the same time. Memories swirled around the stadium like hot dog wrappers on a windy day. The stadium is a dump, true, but I saw a lot of baseball there. It all began one gorgeous April day in 2005 - the second greatest baseball game I've ever seen (the first was a 2002 World Series game in San Francisco). The energy in the stadium was amazing. People were hungry for baseball and excited at the newness at it all. We entered through metal detectors because the Naked Emperor was throwing out the first pitch, and it all seemed like a zoo. Nobody cared about the inconvenience, though, because nothing could ruin the return of baseball to our nation's capital. I sat in the orange seats in leftfield that day, one of a handful of times I've sat in the lower level.
That first game was sold out, of course, and the atmosphere was simply incredible. From Vinny Castilla's homer and his 4 RBI performance to Livan's 8.1 innings pitch and Chad Cordero's save, the whole game was just amazing. We never could have guessed that this team would be in first place at the All Star break, but it was true. The team consistently received 40,000 fans at the ballpark, which shook with a joyous thunder as people jumped up and down and celebrated this great game. I'll never forget the feeling of bouncing concrete beneath my feet.
The second half of the season was heartbreaking. I found myself rooting against my own Cincinnati Reds during that series in desperation, as not only had the division lead slipped away, but so had the wild card lead. Officially eliminated in the last week of the season, September had been one filled with a disappointment like that of watching a tree go bare in autumn. It would be a cold, cold winter, one that has lasted two seasons so far with no warmth in sight.
Yeah, I know this one is running into the profane sidebar, but I just wanted to blow it up a bit to capture the beauty of a ballfield. (It's a shame that photos on Blogger appear grainy - they aren't like that on the computer.) This is the view from my seats, the best birthday present ever. What a glorious site to behold!
RFK isn't all bad. A creative person can find interesting shots around the ballpark, even during her twentieth game of the season! Of course, the September sky's brilliance is a photographer's best friend. The flag was far less cooperative, and it refused to fly all the way out so I could get both the stars and the stripes. Did I mention how beautiful the day was?
Normally I'm not fond of the gimmicky crap that's overtaken the game of baseball these days on account of this being ADD nation and all, but I gotta say, I absolutely love the president mascots. What a simple yet brilliant marketing concept. I can't believe they didn't let Teddy win the last game. The bullpen all came out and tried to keep the other three back, but Teddy never showed - he was supposed to be at the new ballpark, apparently. Not cool. 
Chanting for Teddy erupted after Abe was booed for winning the race (was it Abe? I forget.), though it turned out to be a typical Washington chant, where different sections of the stadium couldn't get it together. This is the only city I've been in where people don't know how to cheer at a baseball game. I find it rather strange. But hey, at least the stadium was full.
I roamed around the stadium during the middle innings, taking it in one last time, going to corners I'd never had cause to visit like the very top row of the highest part of the park. I tried to imagine what the stadium had been like back when it was a new thing of wonder, when people marveled at its space age architecture, when you could tell whether the seats were purple, pink, or maroon (Don Sutton called them red in the post game ceremony), 
when there wasn't standing water sitting above the drains (yeah, and it stunk like sewage, too!). I noticed everything on this day, noticed the chipping paint, the cracks in the concrete, and the dampness everywhere. I suppose I had just gotten used to it and blocked it out until I was forced to use all of my senses to capture as many memories of the place as I could. The stench of this standing water - which was two inches above the drain and had empty beer cups floating on it like toy boats - is not something I want to remember. Then again, the whole dumpiness of the stadium has a sort of cherished nostalgia element to it, at least it does in my mind. Like a guy I work with who grew up in Costa Rica said, "Only in America would you tear down a stadium like this. In most of the world, RFK is world class."
No game is more alive than baseball, a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow - God's promise that he'll never wreck the world again. (Boy, wasn't THAT a lie!)
I'm pretty torn about this ending, being fond of symbols as I am. I was younger when they tore Riverfront down - yeah, it was only four years ago, but four years makes a huge difference in your twenties - and I didn't attend the last game there. I did have a few tears in my eyes as I watched the implosion - it wasn't just a building, it was my childhood. It was the Big Red Machine and the 1990 World Series. It was Eric Davis and Barry Larkin and Chris Sabo and Tom Browning. But it didn't hit in me in the same way as going to the last game at RFK because by the time they tore Riverfront down, I had been long gone from Ohio. The last game at RFK coincides with my departure from Washington, so it's the end of a chapter of my life.
The team woke up in the late innings, like that 2005 team with all of its comeback wins. I remember thinking back then that no late deficit was insurmountable. On Sunday, that feeling returned to me, and I think the whole stadium kind of felt like we were going to win. We had to, I needed it, I needed to end it all on a good note, a note that I can hum sometime in the future when I'm thinking about DC.
Most of the crowd stayed until the end, unlike the rest of the season, when nary a soul was left in the ninth inning of a game. When we stood after Cordero got the second out in the ritual attempt to will him a final out, we weren't just standing for a game, we were standing for an era. It may be an era that many don't look upon with fondness, what with the dumpy stadium and the losing and all, but it was an era of infancy that we nurtured, we who went to the games regardless of the team's woeful inadequacies. In the end, it's the game itself that matters, summer's game, when light and warmth permit us to enjoy the great outdoors with our friends and family and we can stuff our faces with overpriced hotdogs and beer and suck in every ounce of life that surrounds us. 
The game ended in the same manner as the whole RFK experience began back in 2005 - with a thrilling victory. For the first time since that exciting first half of that exciting first season, I felt a stirring of true love for the team of my city of residence, despite their terrible record, despite their terrible players, despite their terrible stadium. This is something we can never have again, not only the stadium or the players, but the relative newness of it all, the growing pains, all of the headaches of a lack of ownership and modern baseball amenities. We've been there from the very beginning rooting for a team because Major League Baseball finally gave the city a team and we live here and they are ours. For me, the Nationals are a big part of my Washington, DC experience. My head is filled with images of the Capitol Building, the White House, and RFK Stadium.Last call's come and gone, my glass is empty, the game is done, and it's time for me to move on.
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