The World's Common Tater

Until last year, we have gone to at least one baseball game every season. We are Braves fans, so we go to a game when they are in town to play the Nationals. My daughter recently said she wanted to go to a game so we bought tickets. This year we could have chosen to go to Baltimore to see them play, but somehow I missed this fact when looking at the schedule. For various reasons, we chose to buy tickets to the game this past Friday. We bought six tickets. My daughter invited a friend. We were meeting my son and his girlfriend there. Everything was set. And then the rain…

We left our house as a storm was approaching. We drive through torrential rain in our neighborhood on our way to the city. As we drove, I watched the radar and saw a storm was approaching DC. The Nationals tweeted that the game would be delayed due to the approaching storm. I kept watching the radar and was hopeful when I saw the storm was moving to the south. Maybe the game would start soon. We got to the city, parked, and walked through a drizzle to Nationals Park. The weather was looking good. Drizzle and the radar showed the storm to the south. There was no information from the team about the game. Just the same “we are monitoring the situation” I thought the game should start given the conditions, but then the lightning started and kept going. The rain got steadier and didn’t stop. It was annoying that I could see clear skies very close, but the rain just settled over us.

We waited and no new message from the team. We were sure there was no way they would start a game after a certain point Concessions were still open, but my kids waited before buying anything in case the game was canceled and they could walk to Shake Shack instead. And we waited. Two hours after game time my son gave up and left since he had to be up early for work he next day. Concessions started to close around us. We were sure this was a sign the game was about to called.

Around 9:45PM they announced that we could now leave the concourse and go to our seats. Since there was only a handful of us left, we decided to see if we could sit closer to the field. Unfortunately, they were still monitoring the lower level and refusing to let us common folk enter. I guess they would rather have an empty lower bowl than let peasants like us in their special territory. In common folk land, it was a different story. The usher up there told us to sit wherever we wanted since no one was there. We found seats and settled in. We discovered most concessions were still closed. Luckily, my daughter was able to get chicken tenders but options were limited.

Soon after, they announced the game would start at 10:15PM. We did get to watch a game that night. It was a good game and my team won. It ended at 1:15AM. We made it home around 2:30AM. I still have not recovered from the lack of sleep.

I’m glad we got to see a game. I enjoyed the game once it started. I didn’t like that the team never updated the fans on anything for over two hours. I think it is dumb and obnoxious to prevent people from moving to lower seats when the place is nearly empty after a three hour rain delay. I think it is dumb and obnoxious to close most concessions if you plan to play the game. I think the Nationals organization is dumb and obnoxious, so none of this surprises me.