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Opening Night: Homecoming for Nats fans, players
A few hours before game time, I was transported back to 1971. Tony Roberts was talking over the radio, telling me how the final Senators game at RFK was unfolding. Frank Howard did not want to leave Washington, Roberts said. The fans, he told me, were vocal and restless -- a charged atmosphere picked up by the crowd mic.
Howard hit a vicious line-drive homer, igniting a four-run comeback against the Yankees. Although Hondo's shot was six years before I was born and 34 years before RFK's next official game, I could visualize the white ball ricocheting beyond RFK's outfield wall. Howard twice received curtain calls, and the radio provided a vivid picture of the love between D.C.'s ardent baseball fans and their perennially losing team, a love on the verge of losing its home for far too long.
A generation passed and a population boomed before the national pastime returned in 2005 to the nation's capital. The current-day Washington Nationals played three seasons at RFK stadium, but now they and their vocal, restless fans have a new home in which to foster their affection, a gleaming gray edifice on South Capitol Street, just off the Anacostia River. The now-familiar curly W begins the refrain Welcome Home, repeated on countless signs and structures around the Navy Yard Metro station.
Metro loaded up on extra cars to convey the masses to Opening Night, resulting in full yet not uncomfortable trains. The air conditioner combated the heat of dozens of red-clad Nats fans per car. At L'Enfant Plaza, I hopped off the Orange line, scaled the stairs to the upper platform and rode the Green line for the two-stop journey down to the waterfront. Either the Navy Yard or the Waterfront/SEU station is a nice walk from the ballpark.
For those choosing to drive, parking near Nationals Park is highly implausible at best. Parking is free at RFK, and the Nationals offer complimentary shuttle service to the new stadium.
After a visitor emerges onto Half Street from the Navy Yard station, a left turn reveals Nationals Park rising up into view a mere block away. Red signage blares outward from the faces of proximate structures, welcoming us home. The prevalent color of the park itself is deep blue, almost gray, but not depressingly so. The scheme matches those of Washington's most visible buildings a few blocks away, stately and functional.
Flavors unique to D.C. surround two concourses in Nationals Park. Patrons can opt for Ben's Chili Bowl's half-smokes, or Five Guys' burgers and fries, or Hard Times Cafe's chili, or Gifford's ice cream or Red, Hot and Blue's barbecue. Chicken, pizza, frozen treats, even wine are available at dozens of food outlets along the walkway every few steps.
A fully enclosed bar, the Red Loft, provides plentiful libations and a center-field view, as well as a welcome respite from the early spring cold.
The stadium's prices are typical of today's sporting events: $4.50 for a Nats dog, $6.75 for a Ben's half-smoke, $4 for a bag of peanuts, $7.50 for a long-neck Miller Lite. Restrooms are more abundant than at RFK, and -- at least on Opening Night -- had a scent of freshness, that new-park smell.
Modern Americans' posteriors are infamously more ample than their counterparts of previous decades. Seats at Nationals Park reflect this national growth, but just barely.
While my backside might not have been entirely comfortable, my eyes were assuaged by the vista. Each point within the stadium bowl gives a solidly open view of the field, and the seats are closer to the field than at RFK. The park is airy and open, a contrast from RFK's concrete closedness. The huge high-definition video board in center field competes with the live action for clearest signal, and provides an easily readable line score, stats updated with each passing at-bat.
On baseball's Opening Night in Nationals Park, as ESPN viewers watched, the first inning went as scripted. The Nats used three hits to score two runs after starter Odalis Perez held the Braves scoreless in the top half.
In the fourth, Atlanta's Chipper Jones, on his way to Cooperstown, scorched a rising liner to left-center for the park's first dinger, cutting the Nats' lead to one.
No doubt the freezing wind whipping through the stadium had something to do with the chorus of boos that cascaded after Jon Rauch's wild pitch allowed Atlanta the tying run in the top of the ninth. A few minutes later, when Ryan Zimmerman touched off a two-out walk-off blast over the left field wall, the ballpark exploded into a euphoric paroxysm borne from the sheer joy of sudden victory.
As red, white and blue fireworks cast a glow off the newly painted nooks of Nationals Park, Zimmerman rounded third and leaped toward home, pounded on by jubilant teammates. Opening Night ended in storybook fashion, the antithesis of 1971. Hondo's torch was passed to Zimm, while D.C.'s baseball-loving community, so long shunned by the beautiful game, had finally found its way home.
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