Monday, June 19, 2006

Zimmerman's walk-off lifts Nats

Zimmerman's walk-off lifts Nats: "Ryan Zimmerman's two-run home run in the ninth inning lifted the Nationals over the Yankees, 3-2, in front of a sellout crowd of 45,157 fans on Sunday. It was the largest single-game crowd in RFK history."

Yankees left their Wang in too long at RFK. "When you don't pull your Wang out soon enough that is when mistakes happen." (Kristin Lupton making an observation that starting pitcher Chien-Ming Wang stayed in the game a bit too long)

An awesome weekend for Nationals fans!!! I may have to recant my last post. Although I was surrounded by Yankees fans during tailgating and at the game, I did get to high-five random Nats fans. With a late rally on Saturday and a walk off homerun there was deffenitely a lot to cheer about. The fans were awesome... everyone refused to let the Yank fans take over with loud "Johnny" chants and "Lets go Yankees". Yakee supporters were either, rightfully, booed or taken over by "Lets go Nats" chants. Both Saturday and Sunday were by far the most exciting games I have ever attended. I now of visions of an exciting and beautifully constructed Southeast waterfront, complete with a new National's Stadium. The plans for the new stadium look awesome, and hopefully by 2008 we'll have a contending team and just as important a loyal fan base there to propel the players to a post season.

Now if this support can only be carried over to the games in which the Nats play the Devil Rays, Marlins, and less popular teams.

Friday, June 16, 2006

Nationals Fans Scarce

Yankees are coming to the District this weekend. While I'm looking forward to seeing RFK stadium full of people I'm not looking forward to the majority of those people wearing pin stripes.

I find it annoying that D.C. can't become a great sports town like New York, Boston, or Detroit. I say Detroit not because it is an awesome city but because it has some loyalty to it's teams. Same could be said for Pittsburgh. Both are crappy towns but the fans are awesome.

I want to know what it will take to make D.C. into a great town for watching games. Will it take a marquee player like Soriano to get people interested in coming out. I'm sick of going to my seats and having the opposing teams fans surrounding me. I would just like to get up one time after a homerun has been hit and high five a stranger who shares no common bond then simply being a Nats fan.

I need a place that I can go to and be assured that there will be a D.C. oriented event on and fans who are genuinely interested in what is happening. I need a place where load cheering and chanting occurs, and it doesn't involve the Redskins.

In the end it will take time to build up some kind of history. It seems people are only drawn to the historical aspect of a team. You don't see many people getting excited about the Devil Rays or even the Marlins even though they have won a World Series and been in the playoffs several times.

I'm making a stance now to pass on a sense of pride about the D.C. nats to my children and proliferating the idea of D.C. as a great sports town. Hopefully as I approach death I can walk down M st. and feel the electricity in the air during the months between April and October as the nationals take the field 81 times in downtown D.C.!