Nationals VS Padres 7/25/09

My dad was tired from the first game, so I hopped on the metro @ 3:00 by myself. I arrived at the stadium with 45 minutes before the gates opened, so I went into the cool, air-conditioned team store. There t.v. monitor showed the cages set up, and a few players out, so I was happy.

The team store is nice, but the Nationals DO suck, so of course there were a few questionable items. If your team is bad enough to fill up their own "TEAM STORE", with jerseys,hats,and shirts of other teams, yea, you've got a problem. I know every deserving player there is in the MLB, that is good enough to have their jerseys sold, but c'mon. JESUS FLORES! I had heard of him maybe once, before this trip, and they were selling HIS jersey. Not trying to be a biast Yankee fan, but if the Yankees got him, he'd be at most a starter on their Triple A team. That's Pathectic.

ANYWAY, back to snagging. The gates opened five minutes late, because the employees forgot at the last second, that they didn't open up the terminals with the key. When I ran in, I looked for easter eggs in left field. But there were none to be found. Why? Aaron, aka district boy had told me the day before that Jim Riggleman there interim coach, stresses defense more than anything. They were taking infield practice, which sucked.

So I ran around to right field and just sat and waited for it to be over. I couldn't do anything else.  

that lasted another fifteen minutes, and then they finally started bp. Within a minute a ball rolled to the right field wall, and I got Tyler Clippard to toss it up. Ball #1. A few minutes later, the bat boy at the screen behind second tossed a ball that looked really beat up into the outfield. Mike Mcdougal picked it up, and surveyed the seats. There were maybe just 10 people, and I was the only one who saw this, so I raised my glove and he threw me ball #2.

The ball Mcdougal tossed me was the worst conditioned ball I've ever gotten. That along with the Clippard ball, and the one Austin Kearns tossed me minutes later-#3, were all training balls. After that, I went on a cold spill, and wouldn't get another for the rest of Nationals BP.

I was down the left field line, and got Josh Geer to toss me his warmup ball when he was done for #4. That would be it for Padres bp, because I didn't bother going back into the outfield. The Padres didn't throw anything into the crowd, and there were MAYBE 3 ball hit there the entire time.

I was behind the dugout when the Padres came off the field, and got 4 awesome autographs. Im not really into them anymore, but couldn't pass these guys up. Kevin Kouzmanoff, David Eckstein, Tony Gwynn Jr., who was really nice, and All Star Adrian Gonzalez. It was pretty awesome.

I also met Riley, who told me he's read my blog before. That was cool to be recognized, and I saw him throughout the night.

I was behind the Nationals dugout, knowing that they warmup before the game. I also knew that the veteran ends up with it, like earlier in the season when I got back-to-back from Ryan Zimmerman and Adam Dunn. Well, Christian Guzman came out first with Ronnie Belliard. Like I expected, Guzman was on the home plate side, where I was. Then Ryan Zimmerman came out with Nick Johnson. He was also on the homeplate side.

I was hoping it would work out the way it did at Citi Field back in late april, and sure enough, it did. Guzman walked in, I flapped my glove, and he tossed me his warmup ball-#5. Then a minute later Zimmerman ended. He was looking at the side of the dugout at first, but turned to head in. He looked up, saw me and flipped me ball #6.

My seats were a few rows up on the section next to the Nats dugout, above first base. After an unsucccessful first try, in the middle of the second i headed down for the third out ball. The padres pitcher grounded out to Belliard at second. He threw it to Nick Johnson for the third out. Johnson jogged in, scanned the seats, and threw it to me, ball #7. I headed up to my seat a few rows up happy, the turned around to see the tarp getting put on the field. WHAT?

Storms were heading the way, and they made us evacuate the seats. I first got a picture of the ball with the tarp in the background.

I got a burger from 5 Guys, sat with a friendly usher, and waited. I had to get back on the train at ten, since it was a forty five minute ride back to the hotel, and I was by myself, I left at 8:45. It's a good thing I didn't wait around, because the game resumed at 10:15ish, and I was already back in my Marriot.

STATS:

Game: 7 BASEBALLS
Season: 56 BASEBALLS
Career: 84 BASEBALLS

My final post of the trip will be up soon.