Friday, September 11, 2009

Justification for higher education

Back in March, as some of you may remember, I switched jobs moving from a big company (12k-plus employees) to a much smaller company (500 or so employees). This was forced upon me by the old company’s (let’s just say its acronym is a homonym for a type of tan-ish fabric) inability to win the re-compete for the contract I was working on.

Lazy bastards.

In the past six months I’ve come to really like my new company. It’s consistently rated as one of the best places to work in D.C. and I can see why. One of the best reasons I’ve found so far is the company’s season tickets at Nationals Park work their way through the rotation a whole lot quicker.

On Wednesday, my boss called to see if I wanted to go to the game that night and, having nothing else to do that evening except contemplate my navel, I said “Sure, no problem.” He told me the tickets were in the top drawer of his desk and just asked that I not scalp them. Not that I’d do that of course but, after opening the envelope I found in his desk, I understood the warning. Here’s why:


It’s not often you get offered four, fifth-row, behind home plate tickets. Except for some of the tickets I got for Heels’ games in the Dean Dome (front row, behind the goal, SCORE!) these were probably the best tickets I’ve ever had in my life. And best of all, they were free (just like the food that was served to us in our 22-inch-wide padded seats).

Seriously. I’ve never actually had to go down before to get to my seats at a baseball park. The climb to my seats, usually halfway to the stratosphere, was an integral part of the game for me. To get to our seats we had to ride the elevator down and then go through this door:

which was guarded by not one, but two very large men.

I’m not kidding with the title of this post, seats like these are seriously a justification for higher education, cause trust me baby, these seats ain’t cheap. As a comparison, I just bought four pairs of tickets to Caps games this winter all of them cost me only marginally more than just one of the tickets I used on Wednesday.

These seats confirmed something I already knew: Nationals Park is one of the nicest places around to watch baseball. It's just a pretty, well thought out stadium. This is a good thing because the team sucks so bad the Nats are almost painful to watch and the folks running the stadium do their best to make watching a bad team even harder.

Anyway, here’s a couple more shots from Section E, Row E, Seat 3:

Shortly after this picture was taken, Abe cut blocked Tom and both of them ended up on their asses. Tom still won the race.
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Technically, this one wasn't taken from our seats, but it's pretty close

A view into the secret world of the goings on in the Nats' dugout
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Adam Dunn watching Cristian Guzman watch one go by
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And while I won’t say leaving the park that night was difficult cause, c’mon, the Nats lost again, I do look forward to the next time the boss calls.
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12 comments:

Liebchen said...

I only wish my company did this. As it is, a friend got tickets to last night's game - not nearly as good as yours, but still right behind the Phillies' dugout! Of course it was the one the Nats won... :-(

J said...

Ahem, I believe there are some pictures of you and a certain eagle mascot named "Screech"? :)

FoggyDew said...

Liebchen - Boy, then I really shouldn't mention that while I had four tix, I could only find two people on short notice to go to the game. Oh, wait a minute, you're a Philly person, aren't you?

J - You can look far and wide on this little piece of the 'Net and you'll find nary a picture of the Dew. I post no pictures of myself and only very, very rarely put up pictures of people I know. But if you'd like the pic of you and the bird posted, just say the word...

lacochran said...

Sweet deal!

A said...

Ah, yes. I used to work for a company that had seats like that for the Jays games. Behind home plate is sweet.

No pics of the downed Presidents? Nothing makes me giggle more than watching the sausages/Presidents fall down in those awkward costumes. Mean, but true. I'm giggling just thinking about it.

FoggyDew said...

lacochran - Sweeter than saccharine, baby!

A - Actually, I do have one of Tom and Abe in a pile. I'll be happy to pass it along when I get home. When the Pirates played here in May or June, they brought their racing pirogues along for the ride. Potato Pete beat Teddy by tackling him. Comedy ensued.

Two Shorten the Road said...

Wow, those seats were awesome. Love the presidents pic.

Sebastian Anthony said...

I don't play, watch or really appreciate baseball... but I can understand how awesome those chairs must be.

Because I'm a musical theatre lover. And I only watch shows if I can get seats in the first 5-7 rows (depending on the theatre).

The tickets cost a fortune but it's worth it, damnit!

22 inches eh? Big enough for all but the most voluminous backsides!

rachaelgking said...

JEALOUSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.

FoggyDew said...

Two - The presidents are the highlights of any game.

Seb - Not that I don't fit in the regular seats, but the extra space is always appreciated. Last musical I saw was Spamalot, wasn't quite as close as you like, but it was still funny nonetheless.

LiLu - Finally, someone jealous of me. Score!

Alice said...

nice seats!! the only problem is they're like first class seats on an airplane... once you know how nice it CAN be, it's hard to go back to coach :-)

Jamie said...

Would love those Heels seats, too, though!