Blog post

August 20, 2006 [LINK]

Nats' comeback falls short

The Nationals looked excellent in their Friday night game in Philadelphia, building a nice lead early and holding on to win 6-4, but then the Phillies got their revenge yesterday, 10-2. Today's game started out the same painful way, and Pedro Astacio stunk, quite frankly, in sharp contrast to his last outing. After the fourth inning, the Nats were down 10-1, but did they let that stop them? No! They clawed their way back into the game with six runs in the sixth inning, and could have easily tied in the eight, with two runners on and only one out. Alas, it wasn't to be, as they lost 12-10. Well, at least they showed a lot of spunk and put the heat on the Phillies. Let's give a big round of applause to Brandon Harper, the 30-year old "rookie" who hit a double in his first at bat last week, and today hit his first and second home run of his major league career, accounting for four of the Nationals' ten runs batted in. Let's also welcome back Jose Vidro, who has been on the DL for the past couple weeks.

But of course, the big question on most baseball fans' minds is whether the Yankees can complete a sweep of the Red Sox in their five-game series at Fenway Park. Wouldn't that be something?

Mile High Stadium

I've just updated the diagrams on the Mile High Stadium page. I realized that was the last stadium whose thumbnail diagram did not conform to the new standard, and decided to rectify that gap at once. (To hell with my "to-do" list sequence! ) As with other "super-sized" stadiums, I've left the original "sideways" versions intact so that the entire stadium can be seen.

Stay tuned for more new "goodies" in the coming week...

More on Fenway Park

According to wikipedia.org (hat tip to Bruce Orser),

Reported attendance is generally 1,500 to 2,000 below capacity, though, due to the distribution of complimentary (e.g., to players, advance scouts, overflow press passes) and promotional tickets by the team, as well as no-shows. Capacity for day games is also reduced by 410 seats in the center field bleachers to provide a better hitter's background.

It sounds strange, and I didn't know that was common practice, but I guess it would explain the discrepancy. It seems to be the opposite of the situation in most stadiums, including RFK, where the official attendance includes tickets sold but not used, mostly for corporate and lobbyist entertainment accounts -- the "phantom fans," I call them. That page has a link to my Fenway Park page, so I guess I shouldn't make fun of Wikipedia's sometimes-shaky reliability.