Fighting the heat, Jill and I ventured to RFK stadium on Saturday to watch the Washington Nationals play the Seattle Mariners. We hopped on the Vienna Metro at 5:30.

Before I get into the game I just want to say how thankful I am that we live at the very last stop on the western end of the Orange line at Vienna/Fairfax. By the fifth stop the train was packed, but somehow people managed to get on the train until our stop at Stadium/Armory It didn’t help much that the Tyson-McBride boxing match was going at roughly the same time as the ballgame, but it did help that Jill and I didn’t have to transfer to another line…just a straight, 45-minute trip on the Orange line. But the heat and the shortage of air made the trip slightly uncomfortable.

I swore I was going to buy two bottles of water: one to drink, and one to pour over my head because I couldn’t stand the heat. For some reason I’ve grown intolerant to heat as I’ve gotten older. I can remember staying out in 90+ summer heat, playing baseball or basketball for hours, and that seemed only a few years ago. Now, the thought of leaving my apartment just to go check the mail makes me sweat. I’ll blame grad school, though I know that sheer laziness is the more likely culprit. Anyways, I didn’t buy those two bottles of water at first because the day seemed cooler after getting off the train. I wanted to buy some peanuts because, well, I like peanuts and that’s what you eat at a ballgame, but for some reason I didn’t.

We made our way into the stadium and found our seats, only to realize that these weren’t the great seats that I thought they’d be. We sat in section 516, row 1, seats 13 and 14. The view was spectacular:

The problem was the stupid bar that was in front of our seats, which left me and Jill very little room for our legs. This is one of those moments that I wonder what exactly was going through the heads of the engineers and desigers who built the place when they thought “Hey, lets move these bars AS CLOSE TO THE SEATS AS POSSIBLE to make the spectators unconfortable!”

Then again, I’m a pretty tall guy, so maybe they didn’t have tall people in mind when they build the place. Anyways, it worked out pretty well because I just stuck my legs through the rails and had a fairly comfortable seat. But if a foul ball came my way I had no change of maneuvering to catch it or get out of the way.

After finding our seats we went in search of some much needed refreshment. I bought a large soda in a souvenir Nationals cup for $4.75 and Jill bought a bottle of water for $4.00. Here’s Jill holding the $4 bottle of water, holding up four fingers in case you missed that the bottle of water was $4.00.

And we had to take a picture of the bottle itself, to bask in its glory:

For some reason that Jill and I both found odd, the gentleman behind the concession stand, upon retrieving the four-dollar bottle of water, unscrewed the cap, threw the cap IN THE TRASH, then proceeded to hand the bottle to Jill. Either the custodial staff is trying to cut down on the number of bottle caps laying around the stadium (if this is the case, they are failing miserably), or the concession management hopes that the lack of a lid might make it easier for patrons to spill their four-dollar bottle of water, losing its contents, and force them to hand over another four dollars for more water. While I believe it to be the deviousness of the concession managament, Jill pointed out that it might simply be the eccentric behavior of the guy behind the concession stand. I like my conspiracy idea better.

Inside the stadium the day was nice. A cool breeze blew in, swirling around the stadium. Drink in my hand, I sat back to enjoy the game.

The game was really good, a pitcher’s duel. The Nats started John Patterson, who ended up winning his third game. Seattle started Jamie Moyer, then brought in J.J. Putz, who gave up the eventual winning run in the 7th inning. While I wanted the Nats to win (and they did, their 9th straight win) I also wanted to see Ichiro Suzuki, the Mariners right fielder. Ichiro only went 1-4 with a single and the Mariners only RBI, but he one of the best players I’ve seen play, certainly one of the fastest and smartest players. Here’s a not-so-clear picture of Ichiro at the plate:

Here’s a picture of Moyer pitching to the Nat’s Junior Spivey. I think Spivey ended up drawing a walk at this at-bat:

A photo album with bigger versions of these pictures is on the way. Enjoy!