Last night, I finally made it to Nationals Park, the new stadium of the Washington Nationals. The home team beat the Mets, 1-0. The pitchers did it all. Not only did they keep runs to an absolute minimum, but Nationals starter Odalis Perez scored the only run, after smacking a double in the fifth inning. The game had post-season implications for the Mets, who are in the playoff hunt, but not the Nationals, who have one of the worst records in baseball.

It’s a nice ballpark, full of amenities, the way the newest stadiums are. The scoreboard in centerfield is gigantic. After each at-bat, it even shows how to mark scorecards (i.e., “DP341″ or “E6″). I’ve never seen that elsewhere. It’s also the loudest ballpark I’ve been in. I don’t mean the fans were loud. I mean the music was so loud that you can feel like you’re in a nightclub, when you’d prefer simply to talk to the guy sitting next to you.