For Nationals season tickets, he had to hit a home run in Nats Park. Could he swing it?
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Version 0 of 1. They had October baseball at Nationals Park after all. While the players were home licking their World-Series-That-Never-Was wounds, the Nats’ sales and marketing staff soldiered on, determined to write some kind of happy ending to this annus horribilis. Hence, this past weekend saw the team’s first “Swing for Your Seats” promotion. My e-mail invitation read as follows: “Have you ever wanted to experience the thrill of hitting a home run in a Major League ballpark? Have you ever wanted free season tickets? Well, here’s your chance for both!” Of course, it wasn’t quite that simple. Or quite that free. First, you had to renew your season tickets for 2016 in order to participate in Swing for Your Seats. Second, each batter would only get two pitches — and one swing — to smash a fair ball into the stands, no small feat since it’s 336 feet from home plate to the left-field corner at Nationals Park, 402 feet to dead center, and 335 feet to the right-field corner. In other words, us fans probably had a better chance of catching a Max Scherzer fastball with our teeth. So who’d want to risk looking like a fool in public by trying to hit a one-in-a-million home run? Me and about 600 other of the Nats faithful. In assessing my “Swing for Your Seats” readiness, I considered it a favorable omen that last week I had gone 5 for 7 in a doubleheader with my Fairfax County men’s softball league team. Working against me was the fact I’m close to three times Bryce Harper’s age. I also hadn’t seriously interacted with a baseball, as opposed to a softball, since the Reagan administration. Swing for Your Seats was a two-day affair. I picked a Sunday afternoon time slot. That morning I called my brother Bill in Vermont. He was a good enough outfielder in his younger days to have been offered a contract by the New York Mets, which he turned down to go to graduate school so he could second-guess himself the rest of his life. “Should I swing from the heels or be satisfied making decent contact and looking respectable?” I asked. “I would visualize my sweet spot and go after it,” he said. “I wouldn’t worry about a moral victory. I’d want my season tickets. Go for the home run.” Both days the Nationals opened batting cages underneath the stadium, with two “pitchers” from the Events Department throwing soft-toss. Swing for Your Seaters were welcome to loosen up. I took about 15 practice cuts, then walked through the dugout to the field. There I was: at sports-fantasy center stage, for once looking up at all those rows of seats. A pitching machine spit a steady stream of balls at about 50 mph, about the speed of a Stephen Strasburg fastball if he was pitching under water. District resident Mark Galvan ripped a fly ball to left field but well short of the fence. “I channeled my Inner Harper,” he said, grinning. That channeling comes easier when you’re 28 years old. Earlier, someone reportedly drove a ball to the warning track in left field, almost clearing the wall. That was an exception, however. About half the batters missed their one-and-only pitch, which was fitting. The Nationals collectively struck out 1,344 times this year, second highest total in the major leagues. “An absolute whiff,” said Jay Lowery, 42, from Springfield, Va., describing his at-bat with a smile. His wife taped him with her smartphone, and Lowery immediately critiqued the video. His back elbow was “not high enough,” and his swing resembled “a chop”. Stephen Poole of Beltsville, Md., wore his uniform. He’s 58 and still plays in a hardball league. He slashed a grounder that hit the pitching machine, but that was actually a relief. “I’m happy I didn’t pop up.” Mary Brick, wearing her sentimental-favorite Michael Morse jersey, had “two pitches right down Broadway” and took a “beautiful swing” at one of them. No contact, but that’s okay. What more do you need? Red dirt. Green grass. Blue sky. Kindred spirits. “I’m on the field at Nationals Park,” the Centreville, Va., resident said. “It’s a great day!” Peter Byrd, 59, of Falls Church, Va., came just to soak up the atmosphere. “I miss the park already,” he said, and the Nats’ off-season was only a week old. “I’m homesick.” When I walked to the plate, the left-field wall looked to be about a mile away. I forgot all about my sweet spot. The Nationals provided a handful of bats, all wood. How odd they feel nowadays, like a telephone pole in your hands. I took the first pitch. Everybody took the first pitch to get their bearings. I cocked my telephone pole and waited for the final pitch. I swung and heard the delightful crack of good wood. Some people cheered. The ball soared toward deep right field but seemed to lose an engine mid-flight. My deep fly ball became a not-so-deep fly ball, then a short fly ball that plopped onto the outfield grass where a second baseman would have caught it. I didn’t win season tickets; no one did. But our minds grade on a curve. That dinky hit sure felt like a home run to me. Dunkel is a freelance writer. |