So I took in the Nats-Marlins game on this beautiful Mother's Day with my boy Seth... some of you may remember Seth as the guy who joined in with Jason in bashing me for being a total moron way back when I posted the thread about why I'm a Nats fan. Seth himself was born in Montgomery County, but has chosen to stick with his boyhood team, the O's.
As we were walking down the ramps out of the stadium postgame, Seth remarked to me that at both Nats games he's been to at RFK, the fans were "way more into the game than at Camden Yards." Which, putting my best neutral-colored glasses on, after going to 20+ games at Camden Yards each of the past three summers, and many, many games the summers before that, I had to agree with.
The reasons why are undeniable... the Nats stink, RFK is one step above tolerable, and there is not much sensory entertainment going on besides the ballgame. If you're not a true baseball fan, you simply won't enjoy a Nats game at RFK and you probably won't go (see: Fiancee, Jeremy's). At Nats games, you could probably go up to just about any male fan in the stadium, and without looking at the scoreboard, they could tell you the score, the inning, who's pitching, and how many outs there are. I am pretty sure it's not the same way at Camden Yards. You've got a bunch of baseball guys at RFK who love to come to a game on a beautiful spring day, have a few beers, and score the game.
Living in Baltimore, I always heard people wax nostalgic for the days of Memorial Stadium. While my own recollections of Memorial Stadium are very foggy and involve Kirby Puckett, Eddie Murray, Randy Milligan, and Sam Horn, I think I can understand what these people are saying. At Camden Yards, the game is a minor part of the overall ballpark experience. Eutaw Street, Boogs, the surrounding bars, the wide concourse with all the concession options, the Jumbotron flashing when to cheer, the pulsating music in between every at bat... it all makes watching the game almost secondary. Which is fine... don't get me wrong, I'm not writing this like George Will as some baseball purist. But it's very interesting to compare the two experiences. And don't worry... I have no doubt that when Nationals Ballpark opens next season, the Nats ballgame experience will more closely parallel the O's current experience than the Nats' current experience. However, because so much of the Nats' hopes are tied in to the success of the new ballpark, I doubt that Nats fans will wax nostalgic for RFK the same way O's fans wax nostalgic for Memorial Stadium.
Oh yes... seeing the Nats actually pull a sweep with 20,100 of my closest friends on a 69 degree bright sunny May day was excellent. Next weekend, bring on the team from Syphillis City.
EDIT TO ADD 2 THINGS:
1) I realize that one of the reasons for the nostalgia for Memorial Stadium is the amount of team history tied up at that stadium. The Nats/Senators experience at RFK includes three years as the Nationals, and two renditions of the Senators fleeing town.
2) You could really describe the effect of many new arenas this way. I could just as easily have called this the "Comcast Center Effect" (goddamn Comcast Center, BRING BACK COLE). I just wanted to use the two teams that the majority of our 9 readers follow.
May 13, 2007
The "Camden Yards Effect"
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4 Responses:
First of all, Baltimore is Chlamydia City.
Second of all, I attribute the "enthusiastic fans" at RFK (though I saw NONE the two times I went) to two factors.
The first is that the people who are actually willing to tolerate that horrible stadium and horrible (this past series excepted) team are the ones who still want to prove that baseball can work in Washington. That means they are going to overreact. Plus, the expectations are so low that these morons feel like any win is a huge win.
Sidenote: I got a huge laugh out of seeing "Nats Classics" on MASN tonight. I mean, if they showed Chris Hoiles' game-winning grand slam in like 1994, it would still beat every "classic" Nats game.
On to the second factor: I remember an episode of Friends where Joey imparted his wisdom on how to cry on camera. This, of course, was the only episode of Friends I ever saw, and I only watched it in order to get, um, "serviced", by a woman who I remember to be identical to Scarlett Johannsen. Anyway, his method was to cut a hole in his pants' pocket, and then pluck leg hairs with a tweezer at the proper moment. This would cause him to cry.
The analogy is that just sitting in Really Frickin' Crappy stadium is like constantly plucking leg hairs. It causes enough discomfort that a fan is primed for any emotion, baseball or otherwise. I bet 20,000 men, sitting in that shithole, would cry if they showed Extreme Makeover: Home Edition on the Jumbotron. It just sands off the first 27 layers of manhood.
One quick correction before my comment: Only ONE of the two previous Senators teams played at RFK. The team that moved to Minnesota played solely at Griffith Stadium (and the team that moved to Texas also played there before moving to RFK), which was located near Howard University.
But I agree with the effect. I guess thats why I love Dodger Stadium so much. I think it combines the best of both worlds. You have an aesthetically beautiful stadium, with a view of the 6000 ft tall San Gabriel mountains beyond center field (with the sun glowing on them while setting), and perfect weather for the entire season. Yet it still maintains and old time feel without all the modern attractions. Its a place where 55,000 people will randomly start a "Lets Go Dodgers" chant without the aid of a scoreboard, and keep it lasting for an entire half inning. Its a true baseball experience, west coast style.
(And save the crap about the people coming in the 3th and leaving in the 7th....thats greatly exaggerated.)
You just need to sit in the right places in Camden. Come on up to 332 on a Sunday afternoon and you'll find at least a dozen scorecards in the first 10 rows, 8 or 9 groups of fans who've had the seats for 10 years or more, who come rain or shine, winning or losing, who'll hopefully discuss the promising 2/3 of an inning Danny Cabrera just pitched without 3 walks, and who ponder just how much it would cost to have Angelos whacked.
The "problem" is that there happens to be 49,000 seats there and enough OTHER stuff to do that some of them, although obviously nowhere near all, are going to be filled by people who just want something to do on a Sunday afternoon.
RFK doesn't have that, it's hard to get to, uncomfortable, ugly, and isn't near anything else worth doing. So, yeah, everybody in RFK's a baseball fan, but I'd say that the numbers of real die-hard fans aren't different, just that Camden still draws others.
Well defended sir. Going to RFK is definitely not part of the attraction like it is when you go to Camden Yards.
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