Not Your Fathers Ball Park

When I was nine years old my dad took me to my first game at Camden Yards. What a beautiful park it was back when eutaw street was packed with fans, when the smoke from Boog's Bar B Que floated up to the lights, and when any night could result in an Orioles win. That was before innocence was lost, before Angelos took the fans hostage, and before baseball came home, to Washington.

My dad and I were sitting in his company's box seats below the mezzanine, a perfect location for a young baseball fan to be amongst the crowd but not to far away to lose interest. I saw many games there with historic Eddie Murray homers, game winning hits by Cal Ripken, and robbed bombs by Brady Anderson. I spent so much time in those seats…but thankfully not the whole time.

My dad was a baseball purist and he taught me young the true intricacies of watching a baseball game. I learned how to keep score and I learned who to boo. Most importantly however I learned that the ultimate jackpot for any baseball fan would be landing seats behind home plate. Back there we were truly part of the game, he taught me. You could rightfully argue balls and strikes, you could see what the players saw, and you were watching it the way it was supposed to be watched; before games cost more then 10 dollars for a seat and 4 for a hot dog.

We devised a plan and utilized it well. I have no doubt that my dad concocted it when he was a teenager watching the Mets in the stands of a new Shea Stadium, waiting for the day he would have a son to finally utilize it. It was a scary mission, but the reward was worth the risk.

After the last out of the 5th inning, when all the fans that were going to arrive late would already be there, I made my move. I ran out of my seat, past the oft distracted usher, and down to the 5th row behind home plate to a vacant seat. What did the usher care? I was just some dumb kid who probably belonged down there and had ran way from my parents. Then my dad made his move, explaining to the over the hill usher that his son had ran away from him into a section where he didn't have tickets…the usher would let him go "fetch" me, only to never see either of us again. We had made it, three to four solid innings behind home plate in a beautiful ball park, it was heaven.

When I stepped foot into Nationals Park for the first time I was blown away by the color, the atmosphere and the scenic view of a majestic new stadium. My eye immediately caught an eye sore though. Not a small one either. Nothing like a slide in centerfield in Milwaukee or a swimming pool in Arizona, no this is much worse. The new Nats Park has taken the seats behind home plate hostage. They are divided into a whole other seating bowl within itself, and the price to get a sniff of this high class living will cost you $330 a seat. A price that few can afford and few have chosen to, leaves the prime seats in a beautiful park bare and with it the soul of the ball park empty. However the sight of the unfolded blue seats is less painful then what it symbolizes.

I can't help to think what a young 9 year old fan thinks when he sees a section separated by not one but two railings and a completely different entrance way that he isn't good enough to sit in. What is a parent supposed to tell their kids when they ask why they can't go to all those empty seats by the dugout, when the truth is that they can't come close to affording it? How is a dad supposed to teach his son the intricacies of baseball, that sitting behind home is the aspiration of every true fan, only to explain that they will never be able to do it in their home park? It's a capitalistic crime against baseball in our nation's capital.

What has made baseball great throughout time was the way that it connected poor, rich, white, black, old and young. It was baseball that helped so many get through the great depression and baseball that carried the moral of the home front through the World Wars. It was baseball that broke the color barrier, and baseball the helped build this nation back up after 9/11. When you're at the ball park you become part of something that transcends yourself, or your wallet. Every fan unites for the cause of supporting the nine men on the field, and every one equally shares in the ups and the downs in the ultimate cause of victory for the home team. I can't even plea for a change at this point, all I can say is it's a damn shame.