A Stadium Built for Jerks

Baseball stadiums for people who don't like baseball.

By Michael Brendan Dougherty,  September 17, 2008

People who aren't fans of baseball — I call them jerks — often complain of the pacing of the game. It can be soporific. There is no clock counting down, whipping the participants forward. An inning, with no score, can stretch out. The batter steps out of the box to perform a ritualistic set of adjustments to his batting gloves, jersey and helmet, then steps in again. The umpire squats. The pitcher leans over on his front leg, refuses several suggested pitches from his catcher, then pulls back and motions him to come have a discussion closer to the mound. The first basemen lifts his glove over his mouth and joins them. The players return to their positions, the batter calls for time again, knocks a little turf out of cleats. The windup. The pitch. And the announcer, heated with anticipation, calls it "Looping curve. Swing. And a grounder rolllllliiinnng fooouuul," before recounting a set of statistics about this particular hitter, in this particular ballpark, on half-moon nights in August. People who aren't fans of baseball have walked in on me sleeping during a game like this. It's a restful sport, with rhythms that relax rather than rile. The intruders sometimes change the channel to The Hills. My slumber is broken, and in my best bleacher accent, I yell "Hey, hey, hey! I was watching a game here."

Like many newer stadiums, Nationals Ballpark is a place that caters to jerks, while pretending to cater to baseball fans. But before a precise examination of the flaws in the Nationals Ballpark experience, I feel obliged to mention its merits. Despite what seems to be a craven desire to become the Geico Ballpark (the insurance giant's advertising dominates the park), the place is named after its team rather than the company you call when you get sideswiped by a Jeep Wrangler.

Judged strictly by the views it provides of the diamond, it also fares well: Most of the 41,000-odd seats are good. So is access. Because the field sits below street-level, many of the fans can file into their seats without having to climb a staircase or ride an escalator. The walk from the Navy Yard metro stop — just a single block — into center field fires the imagination. The grey flat stone behind the backstop is oddly distinctive and attractive. The stone on the outside of the ballpark evokes the city's other monuments.

And even a snotty traditionalist can't help but sit slack-jawed before the 4,532-square-foot high-definition video screen. Showing replays at a game is an innovation, sure. But, not unwelcome. The sheer size and clarity of the screen gives ticket-holders the pleasure of the living room spectator, the ability to see it again.

The field was properly christened on opening day when Nationals third baseman Ryan Zimmerman  launched a whopping walk-off home run to cap the game; as is custom, the fans stormed the field. No better way to begin a stadium's life than having a celebratory mosh-pit at home.

But already on opening night there were problems. Zimmerman's home run caused someone in the ballpark to push a button which sent fireworks into the sky. While Nats fans cheered, they suddenly found debris falling on them — as if the home run had activated an itch in the stadium's scalp and the dandruff was wafting down. Fireworks are now common in modern ballparks and sometimes, as at Shea in New York, leave a pungent and dark cloud lingering over center field. In Nationals Ballpark, the cloud usually climbs up and out of the stadium, as bits of paper flap their way into your nachos. Worse, fireworks are an obnoxious way of interrupting the swelling cheer of a crowd. Instead of enjoying the homer, we are vaguely jolted by something that sounds like mortar fire.

But loud, flashy distractions are the name of the game at Nationals Park. Between innings, the scores disappear from the electronic boards and are replaced by advertisements. So much for taking the time to fill out the score sheet, which is included in the game program, presumably for nostalgia purposes only. People come to games, in part, to enjoy the sport with limited commercial interruption. This consolation is robbed from us.


The idea that a baseball game could lull one into the sort of blissful semi-consciousness I've so often enjoyed is systematically eliminated at the modern field. In between innings, if you aren't being hectored by some insurance company or an ad for a sports drink, you are ducking and covering. The t-shirt gun is one of the most maniacal weapons devised by man. At a Hudson Valley Renegades game (minor league) a friend of mine was shot directly in the face by one. He was knocked flat on his back, stunned.  I  thought we'd have to borrow a pair of pliers to remove the thing from his eye socket. No weapon since the invention of the long-bow has endowed its wielder with such a nasty smile or such a loping, heedless aim. Its ammunition is infallibly a white cotton dish rag pretending to be a proper human vesture and stamped with an insurance company logo.

Then there are the mascots. Of these, Screetch, is the least offensive. A bald eagle, he is suitable to a team in the federal city. He has neither the classical bearing of my beloved Mr. Met, nor the vaguely threatening facial hair of Mr. Redlegs. We also have four presidents do a footrace during each game — helpfully shorted to George, Tom, Abe, and the hapless Teddy, who has never won the race, despite holding a lead in about half of them. Selling "Let Teddy Win" t-shirts to children seems cruel to me. Perhaps team ownership is preparing their future season ticket-holders for a lifetime of disappointment.

Some people may say that these hijinks remind them of minor-league baseball in small towns throughout the country — where an effort is made to entertain fans and reward them for showing up. This is misguided. Small-town baseball antics are full of inside jokes, or outrageous one-time promotions, like a free vasectomy for one lucky fan. Minor league baseball is folk music. The entertainments on offer at Nationals Ballpark (and many others) are jock-jams. Who let the dogs out?

Like so many modern stadiums, the Nationals Ballpark experience doesn't trust the show it is ostensibly putting on: a baseball game. It partakes in the sensibility the brain-zapped sensibility that's come to dominate live sports. That's perfect for the jerks who don't care for the sport. For the rest of us, though, it's disheartening. The operating philosophy is that no one could possibly enjoy our national past-time without slathering it in techno-pizazz. Gone are the little moments that make the game unique: the superstitious gestures, the punch of the ball into an outstretched glove, the strange diction of the umpire, the din of a crowd punctured by cotton-mouthed vendors. Instead the game is merely the occasion for a larger and more comprehensive "event" — one that is surely tiresome, but doesn't allow us to sleep.