Four years ago, I went to my first Rockies game. I had liked the Rockies before, but I really began to love them that day. My only problem: I live nowhere close to Colorado. Every year I look at the schedule and hope that the Rockies will play the Nationals or the Orioles. Finally, I convinced my parents to buy me tickets to see the Rockies play the Nationals! Play ball!

I was debating whether or not to put a baseball game on my blog. Is this really travel? But yes, it is! I’ve always thought that if I had a foreign person visiting the US, I’d love to take them to a baseball game. Even though American football has gained in popularity, baseball will forever remain as America’s Pastime. Plus, many people try to visit all 30 baseball stadiums in the US. I’ve been to 2.5/30 now. (I used to go to San Diego Padres games when I was little, but they have since built a new park.) Maybe one day I’ll see all 30.

On My Way

My dad and I drove up to Washington, D.C. on the morning of the game. We got stuck in some pretty bad traffic (I’ve convinced people from Northern Virginia just like traffic), but when we finally got there, we had a great pre-game snack. Just around the corner from the stadium is 100 Montaditos. This is a Spanish restaurant that has some locations in Miami and the one in DC. There are 100 montaditos, or little sandwiches, that are amazing. Yum. Just go try it.

After eating, we parked our car and I made an outfit change into my Rockies gear. I was nervous at first because some people don’t like to see the visiting team. Luckily, I wasn’t the only Rockies fan out there!

Nationals Park

This is one of the newer parks since the Nationals just moved to DC 10 years ago. It seats just over 40,000 fans and is located near the Navy Yard. Is there anything special about the park? Not really. There was a food stand called “Steak of the Union” and that made me laugh, but there isn’t a forest of evergreens or a hot tub in outfield or an aquarium like at some of the other parks.

Nationals Park is just a clean, open stadium that is nice to look at. I read that when it was first opened, you could see the Capitol Building from the stadium. Over the past ten years, though, more and more building have been built that block the view. The area is very nice, though. There are lots of restaurants and stores around. That’s why the biggest word that comes to my mind when I recall the park is “clean”.

Open the Gates

At 5 PM, they opened the gates. Neither of us had brought a bag, so we got to go through the easy line. We were inside within a minute or two. We scanned our tickets and we started to walk to our seats. Then someone told us that we aren’t allowed to go to our seats until 5:30! Why bother letting us in if we can’t go to our seats?! So we stayed in the outfield area and watched the Nationals players do their batting practice.

At 5:30, there was a rush of people running to the dug out area to watch the batting practice and warm-ups. I brought a sign. The tickets were an early birthday gift and I wanted a picture with Nolan Arenado. I made a friend, named Steve. He wanted to get three of the players to sign his MLB All-Star hat and he was trying to help me get Nolan’s picture.

A lot of the players didn’t sign anything. I can imagine. You can’t sign everyone’s things and you have to put up boundaries to keep your life as normal as possible. I witnessed two girls come down to the dugout after the game had started. One girl told her friend to pull her shirt down a little and lean over the dugout to expose her chest while yelling at Nolan Arenado to sign their hat. This happened for TWO INNINGS!

Anyway … I didn’t get a picture with Nolan. I wasn’t surprised because I know it has to be difficult, but I did get REALLY close to him. We were standing there waiting for him to come out and when he did, the autograph hunters crammed into us and started throwing things at him to sign. No wonder they don’t want to sign autographs! Even though I didn’t get a picture or an autograph, it was still a lot of fun to talk with Denver fans. I’m also super grateful to Steve for helping me for those two hours!

Play Ball

The players were finishing their warm-ups on the field, the national anthem was played, and the game had started! We had seats right on third base since Nolan Arenado, the third baseman, is my favorite player. They were fantastic seats! The Rockies took the lead pretty early in the game with a home run from Trevor Story. Us Rockies fans didn’t hide our love!

It was the top of the sixth inning and the Rockies’ pitcher hadn’t allowed a hit or a walk. Did I know what I was witnessing? YES! Then someone messed with the Baseball Gods. Before the start of the inning, someone yelled about him having a perfect game and another person said something about a no-hitter. Now, my dad is a lifelong Dodgers fan, but he does have some love for the Rockies. He got so angry because people messed with the Baseball Gods. He said he wouldn’t say anything even if the Dodgers were playing the Giants in Game 7 of the NLCS.

In that inning, Marquez lost his perfect game. And the Nationals scored twice on the Rockies.

Fortunately, the Rockies had something to say and scored two more runs. Bryce Harper was having a sub-par game, not getting on base once. I wasn’t happy or anything. Haha. Just kidding. I jokingly chanted “M-V-P”. The Nationals also had this bizarre rally video that involved clips from Wolf of Wall Street, Family Guy, and just some other weird stuff. No wonder the Nationals didn’t come back.

Rox Win!

The game was over. The Rockies won 4-2. We stayed for a few minutes to see if the players would come back out, but they didn’t. Oh well. It was still an incredible experience.

Now I need to start planning the next baseball trip. Maybe next summer the Rockies will make a trip to Camden Yards to play the Orioles. It’d be super cool to see all 30 stadia. It might take me a while, though!

Do you like baseball? What’s your favorite stadium?