Nationals Park: Pretty but empty

The game itself was a stinker. The Nationals lost 1-0, with the only run coming via a bases-loaded walk in the ninth inning.

But the beautiful surroundings of Nationals Park helped make up for the boring game. Here's a quick review.

The stadium itself is in a fairly undeveloped part of town, with the hopes that the arrival of the ballpark will spark something big. There is much construction work under way to help build the area into a thriving office/residential/entertainment district. (The initiative is known as Half Street.) But there's not much there now. So when we got off the train and exited the Navy Yard station, we walked down the middle of a shut-off street that had large walls on both sides. The walls contained advertisements showing off the Half Street plan. It was a little weird.

It seems most Nationals fans are trained to take the train to the game, which is good for the environment and everything. But since there is nothing around the park to do, everyone gets off the train and goes into the stadium, probably into the Center Field gate, which is the first one you encounter out of the station. 

That makes for a very desolate situation elsewhere around the ballpark. We walked to the home plate gate and this picture was the scene one hour before game time. There wasn't a soul to be found anywhere. Very eerie.

We were surprised by the extreme friendliness of the ticket takers and other stadium employees. All were very happy to see us and greeted us with a hearty "Welcome to Nats Town."

As you might imagine, getting a ticket wasn't a problem. We sat in the front half of the upper deck behind the plate for $21 each. It was Earth Day, so we got $3 off the price of our tickets for showing our public transit card. Only 15,000 in the stands that night. Hopefully the crowds will come soon.

The views around the stadium are nice. I think they could have done more to make the most of the monuments around D.C. This photo at left is one of the best views of the U.S. Capitol from the stadium. It's in the concourse on the upper level. If you're in the lower level, you probably can't see this. From our seats in the upper deck, you could only see the top one-third of the dome.

All in all, D.C. seems to be moving in the right direction with baseball. If they can just get some investors to take a risk on the Half Street idea and the team can start putting their money toward some talent that can lead to some wins, baseball might actually stay in Washington this time.

Tonight, we're headed to Camden yards for Orioles vs. Rangers. We'll have pictures and a review tomorrow!

Addition: The ALO, an Abe Lincoln blog you should check out right after reading this, points out that I forgot to mention the winner of the famous Presidents' Race at the game. It was, indeed, our friend Abe. Teddy Roosevelt had a lead for most of the race. But then, being the politician he is, he decided to stop and shake hands with fans down the right field line, allowing Lincoln to charge ahead for the win.