Sunday, April 29, 2007

THE MAINE EVENT. [04-29-07]

Yes, I realize that last season, I demanded that whoever was bringing those signs to Shea cease and desist immediately, but today, when he left the game, I was ready to make one and hold it up myself. But Johnny Maine gives me that warm fuzzy feeling inside, and no that was not from the crab fries at RFK Stadium.

Saturday night, we had a family dinner, so we found ourselves listening to the game starting with the 5th inning, then parking the car and running into the house to watch the rest of the game, and then we had friends going onstage at 10:30pm in a bar in the neighborhood. We say, “It’s okay, we’re recording the game, no one at Matchless is going to talk to us about the Mets.”
We get to the bar and there is suddenly a TV in the corner, broadcasting the game. But at 10:30 we had to stop watching and go watch the band play until 11:40.
Once the show was over, I was terrified someone would blow it. “Just walk straight out,” TBF admonishes me as we leave the bar. “Don’t even look at the commercials.” We ran home again, and watched the rest of the game.

All of that is a fairly boring and tedious attempt to try to explain how we ended up going to DC today at the spur of the moment. I don’t know when I grabbed the laptop and typed “nationals.com” into the browser window. We’re going to the game on Monday (thank you, Andrew, for giving us your blood donation tickets). We have our plan seats for Tuesday. It’s RFK Stadium, not exactly a park we’re dying to see.

At some point I turned the laptop to TBF and showed him the best available seats. I was waiting for him to shut me down.

*bzzt*

So we found ourselves up at 7am and in the car by 8, driving south.

[More on the trip, and photos, after the jump. C’mon, click below!]

Tickets, of course, were easy to get. We would’ve bought them online last night until the surcharges brought a $21 ticket up to a $30 ticket (although I was eager to try the ticket-on-cellphone technology). We found ourselves in seats that resembled our vantage point at Shea (lined up with third base), except lower down. Nice view into the dugout (or at least there would have been one had someone not left the binoculars in the car in the scramble to get into the stadium. We got a little turned around on the way into the District).

Once we were there, despite the excellent vantage point and gorgeous sunny day, I started to question the wisdom of the trip if we were going to lose. It was humiliating enough having to leave PNC Park after getting swept by the Pirates, how was I going to handle getting heckled by *Nationals* fans? Nationals fans booing our Jose?  I shouldn’t be worried about losing to the Nationals, but, I mean, ya know, we lost to the Nationals already and we lost to the freaking Rockies in a matchup so horrific that I would like to forget it ever happened.

Johnny Maine is so good right now that the rest of the team almost doesn’t deserve him. I say “almost,” because some people are clearly struggling with mental demons (Delgado, D.Wright), and others - I don’t know that I could ever call our guys lazy, but I don’t know what it is right now.  I feel like what made the team come out so strongly last year was because they scored early and often. No one waited, they got the game started immediately. Reyes hits, Lo Duca knocks him over, and we move on from there. It was like clockwork. This year, we struggle to get anyone on base and then swing at bad pitches or don’t swing or hit into a double play.

“‘How To Lose A Baseball Game,’” TBF announced at the frustrating end of the first inning.
“By Willie Randolph?”
“No, by the whole team,” he said, sadly.

MG is an Art Bell/Coast-to-Coast AM fan, and about a week and a half ago, in the parade of nutjobs calling in, there was a baseball nutjob.
“I’m calling about Gary Sheffield,” the guy said. “I think he’s been kidnapped by aliens and replaced with someone else, or something, because...”
That was about the time that TBF woke up. “Did he just ask about GARY SHEFFIELD?”
“I thought you were sleeping.”
“They’re talking about baseball on Art Bell. Great.”
Anyway, I decided today that the aliens didn’t take Gary Sheffield, they took David Wright instead (or, hell, in addition to). And I’d almost believe it if it wasn’t for the miserable look on David’s face after every time he has to retreat to the dugout after yet another horrible at-bat.

In the end, of course, Carlos (no, the OTHER Carlos) saved us, and Heilman and Wagner got us through the 8th and the 9th, and it was time to head back north (but not before a stop at Waffle House!) We tuned into the Nationals’ radio station for the post-game show, and the host of the show amused us until past Baltimore. The best moment had to be the tirade/compliment to Julio Franco. “Okay. Julio Franco. Julio Franco is 138. I am barely 30 and I need to rest after I get up out of my chair, but Julio Franco - man, he just does it. He’s the enemy, and we have to hate him, but I just had to say that.”

*sigh*

I made a promise, no more making fun of Julio Franco.

For now.