Back in D.C.

In the 1970’s, years before I was born and years before I would discover a love for baseball Washington, D.C. lost their Major League Baseball team The Washington Senators, the team moved out of Washington and never looked back. Growing up in Washington, D.C. it is never easy to be a Washington sports fan, if you know you know, so without a baseball team I remember crossing the border into Maryland to see a few Orioles games. Then finally in 2005 baseball came back to Washington, D.C. and the Washington Nationals were set to play the Arizona Diamond Backs on April 14, 2005 for Opening Day at RFK Stadium. My dad took my siblings and I to the park that day and as we sat in the bright yellow nosebleeds of RFK Stadium we had an amazing day and our love for baseball had only just begun.

The reason this baseball ticket means so much to me is because of the story it tells, not just the story of opening day but the story of a family bond. I started playing softball probably around the time I was 10 or 11, I will admit now that I was never an amazing player but I tried really hard and I loved it. Softball was the way my dad and I connected for years, especially through out my teen years when dad was the last person I wanted to talk to sometimes softball was still there to fill the gap. I never went on to play softball more than just travel and school teams but the love for the game never ended. To this day my dad goes to as many Nationals baseball games as he can and when I can go along with him it brings me back to April 14, 2005. Baseball and that ticket represent the relationship between my father and I.