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.