Worth It?

My back is sore, my voice is shot, I only got to close my eyes for maybe an hour and half last night, I’m afraid that if stop typing for more than 15 seconds I’ll fall asleep… and I couldn’t be happier.

Being a sports fan is not a good investment. Not emotionally, not financially, not in any way. You pour your time, money, and devotion into a sports franchise hoping for a big pay out, but rarely does it ever come.

You spend years chasing an elusive moment. An instance where, hope, opportunity, and luck converge at one common point to create something so spectacular that you have to stand up and cheer until your voice gives out because you realize that yes, it was all worth it.

Well I had that moment last night… and I’m still glowing.

The Washington Nationals' opened their brand new ballpark last night, and I was there to see it with my best friend. My expectation was to take in the new ballpark, get back into the swing of baseball season, and hell, maybe the Nats could even win the game… But I had no idea that I would experience that moment!

Like I said, you need a several elements to converge into one moment and last night had all of them.

We’ll start with ‘Luck’… As you can imagine, last night’s game was a hot ticket in town. Season ticket holders were given first crack at buying up extra tickets, and rightfully so.

What tickets were left over after that, were sold via the internet a little over an hour after they were made available to the public. Moe Greene tried to snag a couple of those but just missed out.

Ebay of course was an option we looked at, but prices quickly got out of hand.

The situation was looking quite bleak. In fact I had pretty much resigned myself to the fact that we just weren’t going to get to the game when Moe called me with some unexpected news; He had won a lottery on the team website for the opportunity to buy 2 tickets at face value… If that’s not lucky then I must not have the correct definition of the word stored away in my brain.

So that brings us next to ‘Opportunity’… The Nationals were winning the game 2-1 in the ninth inning. The Braves had a runner on third base, but the Nats only needed to make one more out to win the game.

This is when a generally reliable Nats relief pitcher threw a rather untimely pitch that bounced into the dirt and past the catcher. The game was tied… It was getting really late, it was freezing cold, the Nats hadn’t managed to get a base hit since the first inning, and nobody thought we would win the game if it went into extra innings.

As far as I was concerned we had blown our chance to win the first game at the beautiful new ballpark. To say we were disappointed would be quite a dramatic understatement.

But what we didn’t realize as we wallowed in our disappointment was that giving up the tying run provided the opportunity to see a spectacular finish in the bottom of the 9^th inning.

Which brings us finally, to ‘Hope’.

Of course there was the ‘hope’ that the Nationals would win the game. That’s obvious, and a little too easy.

But there was also the ‘hope’ you get with a new stadium.

For the 3 seasons since the Nationals got into town they played in the old and inadequate RFK stadium while plans and construction for the new ballpark were undertaken.

Everything the Nats did in those 3 years was basically preparation for this season, when the new stadium would finally be ready.

Whatever complaints fans have had about the team’s relative lack of success on the field was met by the National’s management with promises about how things would change for the better with this new stadium.

So there was that ‘hope’ too.

But really, not even that fully encompasses the ‘hope’ of last night, because there was still something else…

…There was Ryan Zimmerman, the 23 year old face of the franchise with movie star good looks and a blue collar approach to the game.

Since the day he was drafted by the Nationals he’s had unreasonable expectations thrust upon him. I wrote about him on this very blog in September of 2005 and proclaimed that he would be “The Nationals First Superstar”. I even went so far as to call him “The Savior”, and the “Baseball Messiah”. Keep in mind that this was before the kid had even played a game in the major leagues!

He’s been as good as expected so far, but that was in the old stadium. Could he continue to fulfill his promise on the bigger stage?

So that’s the ‘hope’ that was coursing through the veins of Nationals Park as young Ryan Zimmerman stepped up to the plate last night… in the bottom of the ninth inning… with two outs… and the score tied…

‘Luck’, ‘Opportunity’, and ‘Hope’ all there, and they came together with one swing of the bat from Ryan Zimmerman.

He connected with a fast ball just below his waist and the ball jumped off the bat.

Moe Greene knew as soon as the ball was hit. As everyone rose to their feet he was already screaming… I on the other hand, was afraid to make a sound. I held my breath as the ball soared just over the top of the center field wall for the game winning home run.

And then I lost my mind... I jumped, I screamed, I hugged strangers, I soaked in the moment. The hair on my arms stood up, I got goose bumps on my goose bumps. And I knew that yes… it was all worth it…