Nationals Ballpark, a review

[BigRapidsJackass]

Hoya recently commented on the new park.

I went last night for the first time. I'm underwhelmed. Can't hold a candle to Coors, Camden Yards, Petco, some of the other parks I've been to. I haven't been, but I understand the Pittsburgh and Detroit parks are also up there.

I understand now why they didn't do a retro old-style park. It wouldn't fit the location. Basically it's in an area of low-rise ugly industrial buildings that'll all be torn down. It doesn't have the natural advantages of Camden Yards or LoDo. More like the setting of the Giants' park -- a forgotten industrial zone. (But the Giants park makes beautiful use of the water; Nats park doesn't). Most of the new development mirrors the ballpark: lots of steel and glass.

Outside the ballpark is dull. Nothing much that says "baseball." Not very open to the street -- there's no street scene at all yet, but the bars, etc, will come. But even when they do, the park itself isn't very inviting and not well-integrated into the surrounding streets. Most traffic comes from the north/metro stop side, but that's centerfield. They should've made the public face of the park in centerfield then.

Inside reminds me of the new retractable domes, like the former BOB in Phoenix. Again, lots of steel. Or (and this isn't an insult) like one of the nicer new minor league parks blown up by 100%. What the minor league parks do to save costs -- exposed steel, minimalist form-follows-function stuff -- the Nats do for (expensive) style reasons. I don't really get it.

And it's really, really expensive. I had a seat in the first row right above the Nats bullpen (I figured there's always a lot of action in the pen given the state of the Nats starting pitching). 39 bucks. Yeah, the Cubs are considered "premium," but that's pretty steep.

Infield boxes between the dugouts are "sold out" all season, yet were about 3/4 empty. I understand this is normal. I guess lobbyists bought all the season tix and they don't use them or even bother to throw them back into the resale pool. I tried to find someone scalping good tix and ... weirdly (this has never happened to me before) was unable to do so. So the TV shots are of an empty background.

Weird concourses -- so much is shut off for the "club" stuff behind homeplate that you can't do a full circuit on anything other than on the bottom ring, and even that narrows a lot around homeplate. No microbrews, just crappy Miller stuff. Crappy undersized bar in CF. Most of all: no views at all. It's not right on the Anacostia River. I had wondered why not. Walking around before the game, I realized: the sewage treatment plant is on the river directly across the street from the park. Oh.

I left early (an oddity for me, since I'm a pretty hardcore "the game is over when it's over" fan) because there was no way on earth the Nats were going to come back from a 5-0 deficit after 6. Lucky I did: I saw the pics on the news of the mob waiting to get on metro after the game. No bars, etc, nearby to cushion the flow by absorbing some post-game traffic. Just a huge mass of people standing outside the metro station.

I will come home with a new appreciation for Coors ... and Camden, the first and the best of the old-is-new parks.