On a rainy, overcast day last Thursday, I finally saw a Major League Baseball game, just before the regular season nearly ended.
It was worth the wait, though weather conditions were iffy.
An Easton friend and I were intent, despite a gloomy weather forecast, on watching the Washington Nationals play the Arizona Diamondbacks in an afternoon game at a ball park that I’ve gotten to love. This same friend abandoned his job for most of the day to join this retiree in his quest for a sports fix.
This same friend, along with three others, were supposed to attend the Nationals Opening Day game. We wimped out and stayed in Talbot County due to the dire weather forecasts. We had hoped that our decision to forsake a rain-threatened game would be a wise one; in other words, we thought the game would be cancelled. It wasn’t. We absorbed the loss of money without too much angst.
So, last week, I was determined to take Route 50 to Washington, DC and then veer southeast to Nationals Park. As it turned out, the game actually started on time at 1:05 p.m. The ball park belonged to us and maybe a thousand other dedicated fans.
It’s funny. A game on Sept. 29 has none of the hope and hoopla as an Opening Day game on April 3. The die is cast, for better or worse. For the Nationals, the game was important in its march to the playoffs. They won 5-3. I have not watched the Nationals win many games. Just bad karma, I guess.
Though the park was nearly empty, the teams seemed oblivious. Just play. Just win—or lose. My friend and I were simply happy to watch baseball.
This is not the first column that I’ve written about a Washington Nationals game. Though raised in Baltimore, I must admit my loyalty to the Orioles has dimmed, if not evaporated. My daughters, raised in Easton, consider their father a turncoat. They question my forgetting my roots and remaining distant from Camden Yards.
For the sake of full disclosure (a frequent refrain of mine in this column), I concede a possible reason for my new-found fealty to the Nationals. A principal owner is a college friend who has been kind enough to invite me to games. In turn, I have reciprocated by attending, with friends, other games on my own. I’ve learned to love the ball park—and its reasonably easy access from the Eastern Shore.
I’ve learned that I love being a sports spectator. Nothing beats being in a ball park or football stadium or lacrosse field or basketball court. And, yes, I also love being home watching a game on TV and avoiding the sometime anguish of traffic jams and hordes of people.
Sports mania is alive and well in the United States. It’s obvious as millions and millions of people pay millions and millions of dollars to sit jaw-to-jaw with people whom they don’t know—and cheer the teams they like and jeer the ones they don’t. Food and drink are terribly expensive; parking often is inconvenient. Some spectators can become rowdy and disruptive, particularly at pro football games.
Once what may have been family entertainment is no longer so.
Yet, the crowds, attired in expensive team apparel, keep coming. Our sports industry is enormous. The proverbial water cooler talk on Monday mornings in workplaces throughout the country invariably turns to sports, either professional or athletic activities in which our children participate.
You rarely hear about piano recitals and choir performances. That’s rather telling, and even regrettable.
I’ve often read conflicting news stories about the economic impact of an athletic team on a particular city. What caught my attention last Thursday in what I’m told was a downtrodden section of the District of Columbia were the new office and condominium buildings adjoining Nationals Park. Though not a Washingtonian, I doubt whether this development would have materialized without a nicely appointed ball park gracing the neighborhood.
I suspect my 2016 baseball watching started and stopped on an overcast day last Thursday. It was worth waiting.
The Baltimore Orioles do very well without my support. My daughters can root for them.
Columnist Howard Freedlander retired in 2011 as Deputy State Treasurer of the State of Maryland. Previously, he was the executive officer of the Maryland National Guard. He also served as community editor for Chesapeake Publishing, lastly at the Queen Anne’s Record-Observer. In retirement, Howard serves on the boards of several non-profits on the Eastern Shore, Annapolis and Philadelphia.
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