Radley Balko has a good name for the new DC baseball stadium: "Taxpayers' Field."
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Very nice summary of article on economics of the NFL draft. I'm just amazed how few sportswriters understand the concept of opportunity cost when covering a sport where a huge part of the rules is the limitations on roster construction imposed by the salary cap. Neither of the Manning brothers is ever going to win a Super Bowl, because the rest of the team can't carry the burden imposed by their big contracts. There's a Moneyball book to be written about the Patriots (though perhaps this is that book), and how they're willing to let their stars walk rather than overpay them. It helps that Belichick was an economics major.
Nats 3, Phils 1
How good were my seats for the Phillies game? I'm just out of the frame in this photo, standing next to the African-American woman. I was impressed with how polite Andrew Card's Secret Service detail was.
Attendance was 23,000 and change, which puts the lie to my prediction that the Nationals will hit 3 million this year. RFK just doesn't have much in the way of good seats, the cheap upper bowl seats aren't selling, and too many season-ticket holders in the best seats are law firms that will end up swallowing tickets on weekday games. (I got my tickets on StubHub, and am not going to overpay like that again; I probably could've gone to a scalper for face.)
Eat before the game; food is mediocre as well as overpriced, with little in the way of variety. There were a dozen-plus different brands of beer around at $5 to $6.50 a pour, but one has to jog the circuit of the stadium to find any particular one, and even then, the brand's kiosk may not be working. Pepsi only, so demerits for that, too. The lack of ATM machines has been reported elsewhere.
The stadium was strangely muted: not much energy from the public-address announcer or PA system: the Star Spangled Banner started almost without warning, I never heard them announce the substitution for Johnson, and the scoreboard screens were about as uninformative as I've ever seen. On the other hand, it's nice not to have blaring sound effects or organ music every five seconds. As a ballpark, RFK plays sort of like the Astrodome would have if it were outdoors and grass: cavernous. Expect lots of 3-1 games, which, when combined with the free-swinging middle of the Nats lineup, will make for quick games. Metro ran smoothly to and from the game (we left in the middle of the eighth). Lots of fans arrived late.
Baseball: uneventful. Patterson scattered nine base runners and an IBB in six-plus innings and struck out six with a mixture of speeds. A Wilkerson two-run homer after a pitcher double made the difference. Johnson had a great at bat to foul off a lot of pitches (including one off his thigh that made him leave the game two innings later) before he walked, but Vidro proceeded to GIDP, Johnson's break-up slide falling about ten feet short. Lieber not only gave up two home runs, but walked luminaries like Guillen and Castilla. I like that Robinson is willing to bat Wilkerson-Johnson 1-2 (which he doesn't always do, sometimes batting Guzman second), but was mystified that he brought the right-handed Majewski in to face Thome with two men on and two out, but it worked--that time. I love Schneider's catchers' mask.
Attendance was 23,000 and change, which puts the lie to my prediction that the Nationals will hit 3 million this year. RFK just doesn't have much in the way of good seats, the cheap upper bowl seats aren't selling, and too many season-ticket holders in the best seats are law firms that will end up swallowing tickets on weekday games. (I got my tickets on StubHub, and am not going to overpay like that again; I probably could've gone to a scalper for face.)
Eat before the game; food is mediocre as well as overpriced, with little in the way of variety. There were a dozen-plus different brands of beer around at $5 to $6.50 a pour, but one has to jog the circuit of the stadium to find any particular one, and even then, the brand's kiosk may not be working. Pepsi only, so demerits for that, too. The lack of ATM machines has been reported elsewhere.
The stadium was strangely muted: not much energy from the public-address announcer or PA system: the Star Spangled Banner started almost without warning, I never heard them announce the substitution for Johnson, and the scoreboard screens were about as uninformative as I've ever seen. On the other hand, it's nice not to have blaring sound effects or organ music every five seconds. As a ballpark, RFK plays sort of like the Astrodome would have if it were outdoors and grass: cavernous. Expect lots of 3-1 games, which, when combined with the free-swinging middle of the Nats lineup, will make for quick games. Metro ran smoothly to and from the game (we left in the middle of the eighth). Lots of fans arrived late.
Baseball: uneventful. Patterson scattered nine base runners and an IBB in six-plus innings and struck out six with a mixture of speeds. A Wilkerson two-run homer after a pitcher double made the difference. Johnson had a great at bat to foul off a lot of pitches (including one off his thigh that made him leave the game two innings later) before he walked, but Vidro proceeded to GIDP, Johnson's break-up slide falling about ten feet short. Lieber not only gave up two home runs, but walked luminaries like Guillen and Castilla. I like that Robinson is willing to bat Wilkerson-Johnson 1-2 (which he doesn't always do, sometimes batting Guzman second), but was mystified that he brought the right-handed Majewski in to face Thome with two men on and two out, but it worked--that time. I love Schneider's catchers' mask.