I went to the Nats game yesterday. If I was writing for another blog, I might say that the rain delay was a weather FAIL. But I know that wasn’t the Nats fault. I do have a little complaint. I was lucky enough to get Diamond Club seats, the ones right behind home plate.
Actually I was in the row behind the one behind home plate. You know, the seats that are always empty? Yeah, those gray ones. If you are in those seats, the gray section looks like the gold section. The game was attending by 25,359 fans officially, but way way fewer in actuality. Especially after the skies opened up and the first rain delay lasted an hour and 16 minutes, then the park was really empty. I went back to my gray seat and thought “wow, the section in front of me is about 10% full, I’ll move up there, I won’t be taking anyone’s seat.” WRONG! Security booked down to stop us.
This is the same thing that happens if you try to seat in a lower section and you have upper deck seats. Hey, I understand they can’t let people sit anywhere they want, it would be pandemonium, chaos, cats and dogs living together, all that kind of stuff. But after the 4th inning and an hour plus rain delay, they need to lighten up.
I lived in New York for over 3 years, and went to plenty of Yankee games. For a majority of that time, I was in grad school, so I was perfectly happy to sit through a 3 hour rain delay, knowing that I didn’t have to wake up early for work the next day. You know what happened after the rain delay? Me and the other 1,000 people left in the stadium sat wherever the hell we wanted to. I know they have expensive seats now, too, and the policy for the cushy seats has to be a little different. If you can sit wherever you want, just buy a crappy seat and move to the cushy seats since nobody goes to games. And people from outside of the Diamond Club section, ok don’t let them in, then nobody would buy those seats, fine.
But if the lower deck is empty, and it’s the 5th inning, the security needs to chill out. Let people sit where they want in regular lower deck seats. And let people in one section of the Diamond Club move to another section. Remember, these are not the people to alienate – the hundreds that stick around to watch this team after a long rain delay on a weekday night. Sure, they don’t need to broadcast it as official policy “hey sit wherever your want after 5!” But use some common sense and try not to push around your fans so much. There aren’t many of us left.
Trades Continue, Just Not Here
In other news, it appears that the Cardinals got Matt Holliday from the A’s. This means one less team for the Nats to trade with. Of course, it also makes Willingham and Dunn two of the most valuable OFers left on the market. Maybe SF or Boston or the Mets or somebody will start feeling some pressure soon.