Baseball Outside of Philly????

Thanks to my college roommate, Mung, I have now had the opportunity to watch a Major League Baseball game in 4 cities – Philly, Cleveland, Baltimore, and DC (in looking at this, it’s not exactly the hub of major league baseball, but still). Last Sunday, Mung invited me down to take in a game in D.C. pitting the Nationals against the Orioles … they dub it the “Beltway Brawl.” I guess they’ve gotta market it somehow, considering neither team is much of a threat to reach the post-season anytime soon.

Anyway, I left my house (near Philly) at around 8:30 a.m., and amazingly made it to Mung’s house in Baltimore in less than 1 hour and 15 minutes (personal record). Mung’s wife was nice enough to drive us to the train station, so that we could get inebriated prior to the game. We settled on a place named “Clyde’s” in the heart of the restaurant/bar district in D.C. I enjoyed a few Yuengling’s and a Roast Beef Au Jus sandwich – Mung had some Mad Hat brews and a Buffalo Chicken sandwich. We chatted for a while, mainly making fun of the bartender. By the way, the Sunday morning bar tenders in the summertime are “chosen” because they aren’t very good, and this guy was no exception. He was telling customers jokes, but (a) the jokes sucked, and (b) his delivery was worse. We really couldn’t wait to get outta there.

We go back on the Metro to Navy Street – this is where the new stadium is located. Mung was amazed how how unrecognizable the place was – he had taken in a concert there a few years ago. All the dreck has been replaced by office buildings. The stadium itself was nice – a little on the non-descript side, but still nice. Food and drinks were overpriced (even more than Philly), and the Teddy Roosevelt mascot got to be kind of annoying (although the DC fans seem to LOVE him).

We had fantastic seats – first row in left-field, about 6 seats away from the foul pole. The only “slight” problem was that the temperature had gotten dangerously close to that of the surface of the sun, and the humidity was about 800%. I was sweating so much by the third inning, I was sitting in my own puddle. I got to the point that I was hoping somebody would either throw a bucket of ice water on me, or fill me full of lead.

We ended up watching the remaining few innings in the “Red Porch” bar – truthfully, it looked more like the snack bar at a local public pool. We watched the baseball game as well as the soccer game (damn those Germans!). Then, we took the Metro back to the bar area, and watched the second half of the soccer game at a bar called Fado’s – nice Irish bar, with the exception of all of the Spanish soccer fans. Do that many people really hate us Germans?

Anyway, we finished our beers, and got on the train back home – weary, tired, and a little buzzed still. When we reached Baltimore, Mung was happy to be home … I was saddened that I still had an hour-plus ride home. I ended up making it home around 9:00 p.m. – a long, but fun day indeed. Sadly, work beckoned on Monday … sigh.



D.C. Stadium ... Nice, but nothing to write (or blog) home about.


Teddy's gotta be rolling over in his grave, doesn't he?