I love baseball. I can’t explain any of the fundamentals and certainly none of the rules, but nonetheless, I love baseball. 

I didn’t always enjoy baseball, or any sport for that matter as a reformed “superb owl” and “I just hope both teams have fun” variety of millennial. In the sixth grade Casey at the Bat did nothing for me, and I was docked points on an essay where I described how I thought the fans of the Mudville Nine should simply grow up and focus on more important problems of the time. I found sports to be pointless and boring, ignoring the truth that anything can be pointless and boring.

Something happened to me in my early twenties when I realized that the satisfaction of “put a ball in the right place” was hardwired into me. One by one, I chose my sports fandoms, starting with the obvious, (football, Eagles like my grandpa) the one that spoke to me the most, (hockey, Capitals, a best friend with season tickets) one that felt the most worldly, (soccer, whichever World Cup country bugged me the least) and finally, grudgingly, baseball. 

My memories of baseball to that point had either been avoiding my parents at a Richmond Braves game as a child, or with my nose buried in a book during a little brother t-ball outing. I had decided it was a game with the same level of intrigue as golf, and hemmed and hawed when my bartender friends dragged me to Nats Park for an impromptu afternoon of $10 beers and hot dogs. Tofu pup in hand, (sorry, America) I climbed up high into the nosebleed seats and settled in. A friend passed a line of bright green bottles down our row, and I marveled at the label. Bud Light Lime, in it’s very own branded bottle! As strange and revolting as a more seasoned baseball fan might find it, this would become the beer that defined the game for me in the same way some folks at Wrigley Field pretend to enjoy Old Style. The saccharine brew with a “twist” struck me as the perfect fit for Nationals Park, a place that wasn’t quite sure if it wanted to cater to impassioned D.C. locals, or the gilded age luxury that the neighborhood sought to develop. 

The most fascinating part of the game for me was the same thing that I had assumed was so boring before, and the biggest complaint from non-fans, the time between play. The subtle looks between players took root in my imagination, where I’d insert my own fantasy dialogue that would better fit in a professional wrestling ring. Until this point, my sports of choice involved heavy padding and helmets that hid most facial expressions. Seeing the 2015 Nats huff around on the field told a professional sports story beyond the big paydays and postgame glamor. Here, you could tell who gave a shit. Here, displeasure or joy couldn’t be as easily contained. There was nothing “raw” or “vulnerable” or “brave” or any other word my peers might use to describe displays of emotion, instead, emotion could be wielded as a weapon, or a means to exploit a nervous rival.

In the states, and certainly as D.C. residents, I know that a number of us see the marker of 2016 as the beginning of Things Getting Weird. This was true in my personal life, too, and I never would have guessed that baseball would serve as the unyielding backbone to the most shit year I’ve experienced to date. The structure I had built myself crumbled in itself in a matter of months, starting with the loss of my main source of income, and topped off by my identity being stolen in a story that made national news. The boyfriend who I had naively moved in with unceremoniously broke up with me, and allowed me one week to move out my cat and a few garbage bags of scattered belongings. I’d spent that summer and fall playing down the urgency of the situation to anyone who asked, and split my time between couch surfing in D.C. and Amtrak trains to Richmond. Asking for a space to crash in was humbling enough, and even though jumping in to train as a bartender at my favorite nightclub kept me busy, I preferred to spend my days away from my hosts instead of lingering and taking up room. 

Scrolling around on reddit landed me on a post that gave a D.C. protip that I thought could at least make the daytime meandering more bearable: $5 tickets in Section 402. 

If you aren’t familiar with sections 401 and 402, they’re both the best and worst seats in the house. They’re located in the upper left field of the grandstand, a long walk from any of the entrances, and far enough from the field that it makes you understand why older folks bring binoculars along with them. The semi-regular rotating cast of characters oscillates wildly between dedicated fans with radios in hand, and folks whose baseball experience more closely resembles my own. Not quite casual fans, but attendees who valued the feel of the atmosphere equal to (or even more than) the importance of the game. These included teenagers on dates, huddled together in hoodies, or a grandparent whose grandkid seems more invested in whatever activity they’d brought along. I attended more games by myself than I did with other people. I appreciated how free I felt to choose just how much I paid attention to the game, either treating the event like the best event I’d ever been to, or staring at the field in an hour-long daze, paying attention, but silently making plans for how exactly I’d pull myself out of my hole. 

This was how I bonded with the bar industry I was working in, the shared experience of having our daytimes open to spend at double headers and day drinking at Cantina Marina. Sometimes we’d go in a big group and see what kinds of deals we could get for the best seats, but mostly, I’d be with one or two other people, telling stories and goofing off as much as we could get away with in between innings. We invented personas for the players, coming up with ridiculous backstories to go along with the worst of the walk out music. We were admittedly merciless towards Bryce Harper. The whole pious, most-precious-boy vibe was too much for us to bear, as we believed it was a spiritual imperative that baseball players have a bit of trashbag grit to them. I’m pretty sure that’s why a few of us had decided by the midseason that Jason Werth was among the most salvageable. As fans, we were always respectful and never disruptive, but we did try to get away with some over the top bullshit, usually involving booze, or cannabis, or both. Have you ever watched baseball in the grandstands, stoned out of your gourd? If you stare in the same place long enough, one of the Racing Presidents stares back at you. Sublime. 

I was behind the bar for much of the end of their 2016 run. During shows at DC9, I’d have my phone propped up and open to my boss texting me rapidfire live updates from the office while the bands played. Sometimes, regulars visiting on the venue level would keep the game playing live on one of their phones from a teeny-tiny browser. We’d each have one eye on the games and try to remain as quiet as we could during acoustic sets. When they lost their Division Series to the Dodgers, I underestimated how much worse that would feel in each subsequent season. 

The last time I went to a game at Nats Park was a couple of weeks before I moved away from D.C. and out to Chicago. I went with one of my closest friends and co-workers, who I had spent summers drinking Bud Lite (and BLL respectively) with in the cheap seats. She bought me an overpriced Nats blanket from the gift shop, and we cozied up during unseasonably chilly weather, trying to share a joint from the farthest out corner of section 402 in spite of the wind. It’s currently folded neatly across the couch in the living room, the red, white, and blue logo a strong contrast to everything else in the room. It doesn’t fit the room in the slightest and I love it to bits. 

The joy I felt at the World Series win in 2019 was a little disorienting. It happened during my fifth month living in Chicago, and I hadn’t quite gotten my bearings. Seeing the parties and posters and even Nats themed battle jackets my friends were crafting back home made me feel truly homesick for the first time in my life, as I watched games from the couch, wrapped in the red blanket. It looked like the best place in the world to be, and I dreamed about it.

I love baseball. It’s mostly that I love Nationals baseball.

I’m going to admit something, and it’s that despite living within walking distance, I haven’t been to a single Cubs game. Depending on reader preferences, it might be disappointing that I’m more intrigued by the White Sox anyhow, as the idea of a two team city is wild to me. Why? But also, why not, right? I guess I don’t need a team right now in the same way I needed a team then. Baseball wasn’t something that saved my life or even moved it in a way that altered me, it was simply structure, the opportunity to meditate, a place to go and watch and feel less alone and more like a human, and something I could talk about with my first bar regulars. I think that’s more than enough to love something. Not a bad score for the game where I’ve been told nothing happens. 

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