Friday, April 17th, 2009. It was a good day – I was slated to head downtown and see some friends and go out. It was quite the evening which I’ll put chronicle as rounding the bases of the baseball diamond. Just after 2pm I stepped up to the plate, hopped into my truck and headed out to meet my friends and start my evening…

First base: had a lovely time at Fado. I love that no matter how long I’ve been away Mary puts a pint of cider in front of me before I even sit down. And she knows exactly what I’m going to order. After a few drinks by myself, I merely said ‘Hey, Mary…’ and she responded with ‘Yep. I’ve got your corned beef coming up.’ Huzzah! Soon, Matt joined me and we had a few more pints together. Well, I had the pint. Matt needed bottles of Bud Light to get his drink on.

Eventually, we were joined by Scooter. Good ol’ Scooter! Since he moved to the DC area he isn’t too familiar with some of my favorite haunts. He ordered a few pints of Smithwick’s and also grabbed a corned beef sandwhich as well.

Second base: After some good conversation and a few more drinks we headed to the ball park. We hung out with some of Matt’s friends – Bob, Chad and LD. It was good times hanging out with some Kansas guys, drinking some beer and watching the game. It was the first time I had tried the Bud Lime. Meh. It didn’t feel like a summer holiday in my mouth, but it didn’t make me feel like vomitting, either. It was pretty fun watching the Nats lose (again). They almost pulled it off, too.

Due to the booze and my hunt for ballpark food (damn you cotton candy and nachos!) I missed the following special tidbit: not only are the Nationals struggling with finding their baseball groove, their front office is struggling with spelling their club’s name.

Ryan Zimmerman (just signed to a deal today!) and Adam Dunn (big acquisition in the off season) wore jerseys with misspellings. Instead of saying ‘Nationals’ across the front the jerseys read ‘Natinals’.

Anyone have a red Sharpie on hand?

N-A-T-S! NATS! NATS! NATS!
(Image via Comcast Sports Net)

I like to think of it as a subtle dig at Peter Angelos and the whole MASN ordeal: WE DON’T NEED NO STINKIN’ O’S!!!! Yeah, I know. It is a little bit of a reach but what can you say?? At least nobody held a tea party over it…

Third base: Due to their work, Bob, Chad & LD took off after the game. Scooter bailed due to being exhausted from work and his recent move. Matt & I, we headed to Archibald’s to see if our friend Bonnie was working. We couldn’t tell since the downstairs area was crowded and we were told to sit in the upstairs bar. So we did just that…and proceeded to watch the game again on television. We also watched women’s softball (Utah vs. SDSU) and two infomercials – one about this kick ass piece of hardware that I want to get for Angela called the Jawhorse and the other was something about rubbing hormones on your face. We had a pretty decent time just shooting the shit with our hot as balls bartender, Devon, and Tiffany, the stripper who likes talking about baseball and why Soriano should have stayed with the Nats.

Home: Which eventually led me to home around 2am. It was quite the trip, hanging out with my driver. We had a pretty good conversation about what is wrong with the DC area, the new Administration and why the Red Skins need to fire Vinnie Cerrato. I finally got home by 2:30, just in time to wake up at 6:30.