As a looooong time (heh, since 2005) Nationals fan, I have lived the ups and mostly downs of the club over their seven years of existence. From a walk off win over the Yankees and Soriano's 40/40 monster season to 102 loss seasons and empty ballparks, I've been there as a fan.
Aside from losing a lot, there have been other indignities, like misspelled jerseys, historically low TV ratings and too many opposition fans. But, those may now be annoyances of the past. I love the new jersey scheme, especially the road jerseys. The TV ratings are up; we were just on ESPN. And opposing fans were pretty much muted during this weekend 2-1 series win over the Phillies. There were over 105,000 total fans at the Nationals Park for the weekend series!
The Nationals instituted a would-be gimmicky "Natitude" campaign this year. Sounds cheeky, but the Twitter ready, made up word has caught on with the early success of the team and I left Friday's game (an 11 inning Nats win) in a great mood. The team even renamed the stadium "Natitude Park" for the weekend.
"#Natitude" is just plain fun. Reminds me of the 2004 Red Sox "idiots;" short-lived, but apropos. It's about time for DC to have fun over sports team not named Captials. This was a great weekend for local baseball fans and I look forward to a fun year at the park. Go Nationals!
