Results tagged “nationalspark”

Remember those fancy renderings of Nationals Park, the ones which showed it as a center of lively activity from both the land and the river? While the development freeze on the land side has been well documented, we were recently wondering about what's been going on with the plans to make the riverside a fun place to hang out too.

Feeling like you may well die while enduring a game at Nationals Park is a shared experience for baseball fans in Washington, but one group of Nationals fans would like to present a special claim on that sense of imminent doom. For a significant sliver of the population, the vague sense of dread associated with a ballgame at the stadium has nothing to do with unforced errors and botched key plays. Rather, it's a reaction to something so essential to the sport that to consider baseball in its absence is to consider, like, cricket or something. An allergy to peanuts, clearly, is an allergy to the game itself. Peanuts are written into the game's constitution -- it's right there in the song. Nevertheless, on August 23, Nationals Park will appease peanut allergiacs with so-called "peanut-free baseball". For $30, fans may enjoy the luxury of not being forced to buy peanuts in a special party suite that will, in fact, feature no food at all, beyond what fans bring. So this could be a deal for people who are allergic to bananas, or raw foodies, or people who aren't hungry, or people who'd rather bring their own damn dogs and nachos. Sounds like a despicable recession-minded campaign to brand nothing as something, right? Could be. Alternatively: It could be a pogrom! Baseball doesn't take kindly to people who are allergic to peanuts & crackerjacks.

City Paper's Dave McKenna reminds us that college football's bowl season will return to the District with a reprise of last year's EagleBank Bowl, despite the main sponsor's TARPtastic financial position. Tickets for the December 29th game (moved back from last season's pre-Christmas date) at RFK Stadium went on sale yesterday. The bowl, which would pit Army (under the very generous assumption that they will be bowl eligible), and the eighth-place team from the ACC -- obviously, organizers would kill to draw Maryland, for obvious reasons -- got mostly positive reviews from fans and teams last season, when Wake Forest defeated Navy, 29-19. But in-person attendance did not meet expectations. In light of that, it strikes us as odd that just like last year, tickets are somewhat ridiculously expensive -- the lowest priced seat is $30 -- for a game possibly featuring a service academy which hasn't been to a bowl since 1996 and a team that will likely be 6-6 and in the bottom half of the ACC.

A reminder for those of you with plans to attend tonight's big Elton John and Billy Joel double bill at Nationals Park (or anyone traveling on the Green Line, for that matter): Metro will be providing extended rail service to reduce congestion after the show, but there will not be any Circulator buses or shuttle service from RFK Stadium, as there normally is for Nationals games. Thinking about driving to the first concert at the new ballpark? As Post reporter Robert Thomson says, "Don't think about parking on the street near the stadium unless you really know where you are and what you're doing." It seems like this one's going to be quite the transportation nightmare, so pack your patience if you're heading down.

In order to get a better idea of "what it's like to be at the game," the Post's online sports department is testing out a Nationals Park Twitter mashup during this weekend's home series against the Braves. If you want to participate, you can hashtag your tweets from the game with #natswp and #[section number] -- now, your report that "the guy next to me is really scarfing those nachos, gross #natswp #404" can be spread even farther around the interwebs! It's an interesting idea, to be sure, but the commenters on the Nationals Journal post which announced the project offer up some legitimate questions, ones this writer was also thinking about. What if the system was overloaded with rival tweets or notes from people who aren't even at the ballpark? How many people in attendance even know what Twitter is or how to use it? What about the fact that we're willing to bet that less than 140 characters is hardly enough to truly describe the hardball ineptitude that could be on display? Finally: is there really anything to gain from this? We'll see -- until the Post makes a decision to go live with the mashup on a consistent basis or not, you can check out the aggregate here.

              

"Yeah Energy and Commerce!”

So sayeth City Paper's Jason Cherkis, who first broke this now kinda funny story on Sunday. From the D.C. FEMS press release:

The District of Columbia Fire and EMS Department met with the Washington Nationals to identify additional measures to ensure spectator safety during pyrotechnic activities at Nationals Park. These new measures will be put in place to serve as an additional layer of protection to reduce debris when fireworks are used during the National Anthem, when the team takes the field, and during the Nationals’ homeruns and victories. Normal pyrotechnic activities will resume for the next home game.

In case you missed it over the weekend, yesterday City Desk reported the bizarre news that D.C. Fire Chief Dennis Rubin went to the Nats game and subsequently shut down the ballpark's long-running fireworks display for the foreseeable future. The ballpark reportedly has the correct permits and nothing unusual happened at Sunday's game, so what's the deal? Apparently, some bits of debris fell on the chief himself:

Fire Department spokesperson Alan Etter confirmed the basic account via e-mail.

Continue reading "Fire Chief Cancels Nationals Park Fireworks"

I would bet a pretty large sum of money that Deadspin's Tommy Cragg has never set foot inside Nationals Park, despite having attempted to tear it apart in a feature he's started called "Why Your Stadium Sucks." Not that there aren't plenty of legit reasons to complain about Nationals Park, but Cragg bases his entire post on stuff other people have written about it or the team, and fails to talk about the most crushingly obvious complaint anyone who's ever actually attended a game there would mention: the horrible, horrible service you get at the concession stands. The long, slow lines and rude service haven't really gotten better this year with the new caterer, Levy Catering, either. Now of course, not every single concession worker at the stadium is terrible. You can luck into a short line or a competent cashier every once in a while, and the staff at the Red Porch Restaurant is actually top notch when it comes to service with a smile. But go to virtually any other ballpark in the country and you (gasp!) don't have to wait 20 minutes to buy a hot dog and aren't treated to disdain and/or total incompetence at the majority of snack counters.

It's never good when a team is swept in a series. It's also never good when a team gives up a 9th inning lead. It takes a special team to get swept in a series by giving up three straight 9th inning leads. This rare feat was accomplished by the Nationals over the weekend, as they dropped three games to the Marlins. The result is that three pitchers from the bullpen, Saul Rivera, Steven Shell, and Wil Ledezma, were sent down to the minors after Sunday's game. To replace them, the team called up Jason Bergman, Garrett Mock, and Kip Wells. This is a dramatic move, and sends the message that there's a degree of losing that even the Nationals organization cannot tolerate.

The Nationals finally won a game last night (8-2 over the world champion Phillies!), but it looks like members of the D.C. Council weren't there to enjoy it. No, instead, the epically ridiculous, second-year-in-a-row Mayor/Council dispute over friggin' baseball tickets is still going on. This morning, Council chair Vince Gray showed up on FOX 5 to give the mayor a big fat spanking over the whole thing. The local news station does a nice job juxtaposing clips of Fenty from his appearance yesterday, looking sweaty, irritated and irrational, with cool as a cucumber Gray, who calmly explains that the mayor is crazy if he thinks he can describe his relationship with the Council as "fantastic." Take a look.

There were five opening pitches to kick of the Nationals season in today's home opener, one tossed by a representative of each of the five branches of the military: the U.S. Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Coast Guard. One source says that the Army representative was the Commanding General of the D.C. National Guard, which would make him Errol Schwartz. A woman representing the Navy and an injured Air Force figure both bounced the pitch to home. It appeared as if the Marine threw a strike, though it was difficult to say since the entire military complement threw their opening pitches at once. Reports from several sources inside Nationals Park have it that Mayor Adrian Fenty came out and gave a fairly lame "Play ball" to kick off the season. So that settles who replaced President Barack Obama, and very well might be the most excitement the game has to offer.

What a terribly sad way to kick off this year's Nationals home opener: longtime Philadelphia Philies broadcaster Harry Kalas -- known for his signature "that ball is outta here!" home run call and soothing baritone -- collapsed around noon inside the press box at Nationals Park. He was transported to George Washington University Medical Center, where, at 1:20 p.m., he was pronounced dead, according to a Philly.com report. Kalas, who had been the voice of the Phillies for 38 years, was 73. There's no word yet on a cause of death. Today's game is still scheduled to be played, but the Phillies have canceled tomorrow's planned outing to the White House. Fans at the game tell us that Kalas' death was announced and they were asked to rise and observe a moment of silence.

So here we are at the start of a new season for the Washington Nationals. For those going to the game today, it's going to be cold and maybe rainy. Tickets are still available! Fire Jim Bowden has a good preview of the series.

Geez, could tomorrow's Nationals home opener get any more depressing?

       

The DC Creates Public Arts Program and the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities unveiled several new pieces of public art at Nationals Park on Wednesday. The pieces include sculptures of Washington Senators players Frank Howard and Walter Johnson, and Homestead Grays player Josh Gibson, all created by Omri Amrany, and The Ballgame, a suspended artwork created by D.C. artist Walter Kravitz. DCist photographer Meaghan Gay stopped by to get a closer look.

                     

Construction crews on Friday hustled to put the finishing touches on a number of new features at Nationals Park, as the team gets set to kick off its second ever season at the stadium this month. It was hard to believe yesterday, amid the plastic tarps and forklifts, that everything would be spic and span in time for tonight's pre-season exhibition against the Orioles -- but Nationals president Stan Kasten expressed confidence that his ballpark would not only be ready, it would be much improved over last year.

You already knew about the new Ciculator route planned for Adams Morgan, which looks set to replace the 25 cent 98 "link" route as early as March. The Examiner reports today that another new Circulator route, this time running from Union Station to the brand new Capitol Visitor Center to Nationals Park, is also in the works. This Circulator route would replace the N22 Metrobus route. Metro's board meets on Thursday, and plans to discuss the proposed routes then. Both new lines, if approved, would begin March 30.

If the thing weren't solidly anchored to the ground, we might expect to find the District's new baseball stadium hiding somewhere in a corner. After all, the last few months have seen enough bad news for Nationals Park to make even the most confident of publicly financed ballparks a little glum.

The Washington Business Journal filed a brief report on Friday updating the status of the Congressional Bowl, the first college football bowl game ever to be held in the District of Columbia, scheduled for Dec. 20. Within the story about how EagleBank may become the game's sponsor is a piece of unexplained news: the game will now apparently be held at RFK, even though back in July, the ACC said the game would be played at Nationals Park. What happened? Can Nationals Park not easily be configured for a football game? We imagine we'll hear more about this after a press conference planned for Sept. 10. The game should feature Navy playing whichever team ends up in 9th place in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

The Washington National Opera naturally wants to increase the audience for opera in the nation's capital. To that end, its last couple seasons have featured a free simulcast of one of its productions via an immense screen on the National Mall. Large crowds have shown up, with better or worse results depending on the weather. This year, the company has just announced, it will slightly modify this program, by offering its free broadcast to crowds in Nationals Park, in imitation of a similar initiative at San Francisco Opera.

Where: Tackle Box

Written by DCist contributor Whitney Satin

After all the good reviews of the new baseball stadium, the owners of the Nats seem more than happy to flaunt their newest city-built acquisition. And what better way than an open house?