Nationals Park: Shea South

There's nothing I like more than a relatively sparsely populated ballpark - the sparse population being largely visiting Mets fans. And so I made my way to Washington D.C. for my first visit to Nationals Park. Overall, I was fairly pleased, although it's pretty hard not to be favorable compared to RFK. Some scattered thoughts to follow. Also, I took a couple pictures which you can check out here towards the bottom of the thumbnails.

I enjoyed a couple headlines from The Onion's sports section on the train in: 'Johan Santana To Booing Mets Fans: 'Shut Up'' and 'Joe Buck to Tim McCarver: 'I Just Said That''

Walking through the park, it was alarmingly bizarre how many people were wearing Red Sox shirts, hats or both. I have a big issue with wearing baseball apparel of teams not involved in the competition at hand. When I go to a Yankees - Red Sox game, I'll wear my dark green Sox shirt (which, yes, I'll admit to owning...blame it on Carly) because it's nice to be rooting for someone, and it sure is nice to root against the Yankees. But c'mon people. Mets. Nats. You're not even in the right LEAGUE.

I have to say, the scoreboard was pretty awesome. It's one huge vibrant screen right in center, and I immediately decided I never want to sit in any of the 30% or so of the seats where the scoreboard is not visible. I'm also relatively impressed with the detail and frequent updates on the out of town scoreboard.

I was very disappointed with the food stands. The days of ridiculously delicious Dominic's hot dogs have been replaced with corporate sponsorship with Hebrew National. The days of inning long waits for a dog and a pretzel at RFK are alive and well at Nationals Park. I missed Castillo legging out an infield single and Tim Redding's double as a result. The guy behind me and his friend were about as peeved as I:

"I'd ask about popcorn but I wouldn't want to slow things down."
"They'd pull out a Jiffy Pop, look up and say, 'This is gonna take a minute.'"
"He'd put it in the EZ Bake oven. Then he'd look at the other guy and tell him to get the manager because they needed a new light bulb."

Finally of note, Nationals Park has a pretty weird sountrack working through the game. David Wright grounds out, cue up "I Like It, I Love It" by Tim McGraw. Ryan Church strikes out, let "Goodby Stranger" by Supertramp rip. My favorite of the night was when Wil Nieves came up to the plate. "Hot Stuff" by Donna Summer. Anyone know if the Nats DJ does birthdays?