Recently in Stadiums/Arenas Category

Wake up DC sports fans!
It's time to put the tissues aside, take off your hockey sweaters (It's too hot for them anyways) and put on your NATS cap.
Let's rock the summer red. The Nats are hot and they've giving us a reason to believe this summer might have some sort of relevance.
If you're still lamenting the poor performance of the Caps, you're starting to sound like an emo high school kid, who just got dumped before prom. STEP BACK FROM THE LEDGE!!
Pick up the sports page and look at the National League East Standings, the Nats are not at the very bottom, in fact they're in 3rd place at 14-13.
The Nats haven't been this promising since their inaugural season when they were actually in contention at the all-star break.
It's been the pitching staff that's giving the Nats a chance so far this season; Livan Hernandez has revitalized his career starting the season 4-1. Additions like Ivan Rodriguez, Matt Capps and the emergence of Tyler Clippard have stabilized a Nationals bullpen that was once one of their greatest weaknesses.
And don't forget it gets even better for Nationals fans as most prognosticators have a June call up for phenom Stephen Strasburg.
So show some urgency and get out to that park, baseball is one of the few professional sports most of us can still afford to go to. Remember it's a beautiful park to watch a game and be forever grateful that you don't have to travel to that dump RFK.
That's it and that's all. Oh yea one more thing, and this is totally unrelated. I would like to let ESPN that I DON'T CARE ABOUT LEBRONS ELBOW!!!!

This past Saturday was the draft for one of our fantasy football leagues. Q, The Sports Freak, Stu, and myself made the trek up to New York City to meet up with Bob and another friend of ours. What better to do on draft weekend than to go to Yankee Stadium? OK, the Redskins were in town against Favre and the Jets (I nearly said Bennie & the Jets!). But it was only pre-season. We had live, real baseball going on in the Bronx. Against the Kansas City Royals. OK, maybe I'm not making a great case. Oh yeah, it's the final season of Yankee Stadium. There, that was a good reason.

With our luck, we had Sidney Ponson starting for the Yankees. Ahh the Prince of Aruba, ex-Oriole when even Q was still paying attention to baseball. Fond memories of watching him blow game after game. He apparently realized there were a few ex-Orioles fans in the stands, as he decided to revert to "Oriole Ponson". Yet the Royals only managed to pull 2 runs out of him. Of course, the Yankees weren't better for the first few innings, leaving players stranded for most innings including at least one with bases loaded. Finally in the seventh, the Yankees broke through for 2 runs, eventually winning it in the 13th.

It was the 7th Annual Keeper League Draft for Stu, Q, Big Money Tony, Bob, and me this weekend. We rotate the draft locations every year. This year it was NYC and a Yankees Game. Yankee Stadium offers a proud tradition of history in baseball. It's everything that you remember about baseball when you were a kid going to a game with family. The dimensions, monuments, and fans make Yankee Stadium one of the best, EVER.

After returning from an extra inning game, we ventured back for a draft. As a former champion and co-commissioner, it was time to prepare for the draft. After being able to unload Alexander for a 1st Round Draft Pick near the beginning of the season last year, I had completely overhauled my team including trading Palmer for Addai plus picking up an additonal second round pick.

It was a re-building year after five playoff seasons. There seems to be some solid depth at running back this season with another season weak at QB & WR. It also boasts a season full of potential at the running back position with rookies. As someone that other's in the league and in the office have come to for strategy and advice, please feel free to ask The Sports Freak for advice or for that matter...Q, Big Money Tony, Stu, BJ or Bob.

As Big Money Tony wrote earlier this week, we took our first of a two part journey to NYC to close down Shea and Yankee Stadium. This past weekend's trip was both fun and memorable. We started our trip via the metro to Union Station before taking Amtrak to Penn Station in New York.

Big Money Tony asked me if Amtrak was still the Wild Wild West of security. Having taken the train more recently than Tony I replied yes. Walk yourself and your bags onto the train throw them up top and walk to the dining cart for some food and drink and just hope for the best. It's the honor system. BMT brought up a great point about Amtrak. Where else can someone just hop on a train and while it's moving then go around checking tickets.

The Sports Freak and I are on the road in New York City to catch the New York Mets in the last season of Shea Stadium. And boy did we pick a great game. Mets won, 3-0 by beating the Colorado Rockies. This should have been a great game, given one of the contenders for the NL East Division hosting the 2007 NL Champions. Instead we get a bottom barrel team visiting a still contender, but only after firing their manager.