The Worst Experience I’ve Ever Had at a Game the O’s Won (By Far)

[DrungoHazewood]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

I convinced my wife that we should go to the O’s - Nats game last night.  Boy, do I wish I hadn’t!

I went and bought upper deck seats halfway between home and 3B, five rows back. All-in cost, $87 on VividSeats, would have been more if I’d bought direct from the Nats.  And, I bought an advance parking spot at a lot several blocks from stadium, cost $25.50.

I live about 16 miles from Nats Park.  Game time 6:45, my map app says it will take an hour and 6 minutes.  We leave at 4:45, and I figure we’ll spend 30-45 minutes looking around the stadium and finding some veggie food for my wife.  Instead, we spend an hour and 53 minutes in the car.  It’s bumper to bumper for most of the trip, the map app keeps pushing our ETA further and further back, and when we finally get to the address where the parking lot is supposed to be, there’s no obvious parking lot entrance, and I have to circle the block in very slow traffic, take a lucky guess that the lot entrance is off an alley between two buildings.  Eventually we find it and park, and the parking attendant tells us that the lot closes 30 minutes after the game.   (The website had said 60 minutes.)

We walk to the main entrance, it’s now game time, and it’s a mob scene.  There’s a woman with a bullhorn telling people it will be faster to walk to one of the other entrances, so we do, which takes several minutes.  We get there and there’s a single-file line of a couple hundred people waiting to get in.  We wait that out, which takes 10-12 minutes, and by the time we’re inside the stadium it’s 7:02 and the first inning is over.  But my wife needs her veggie food, so we find the one stand that has some, and as we stand there, I see an Oriole trying to score, but there’s a pillar blocking my view of home plate and I have to guess from the roar of the crowd that the runner was thown out.

My wife’s food in hand, we look for a stairway or escalator to the upper level, and finally find the longest series of ramps you have ever seen in your life.  It takes eight turns of the ramp, each one several hundred feet long, to reach the top.  By the time we are finally at our seats, the Nats already have scored in the second inning and the Orioles are up in the third inning and already to the last batter in the order.  

Meanwhile, I haven’t eaten but I want to actually watch the game for a while, so I wait until the bottom of the 6th and get in line at Ben’s Chili Bowl, figuring that will take no more than half an inning, but no, it takes a full inning and I miss the O’s scoring their third run in the process.

Well, I don’t need to tell you what unfolded in the 9th through 12th innings and how excruciating it was, but let’s just say I was already in an extreme state of agitation before any of that happened and my mood got darker and darker and barely brightened when we actually won.  As we leave our seats, I pick up an empty water bottle and beer can of mine and dump them in a nearby recycling bin.   My wife says she needs to use the ladies’ room and while I’m waiting, I reach into my pocket for my cell phone and…it’s not there.  I want to run back to our seats to look, but my wife is still in the ladies’ room, so I have to wait for what seems like an eternity.  She finally emerges, I dash back to our seats, but the phone is nowhere to be found.  As I come onto the concourse, I spy the recycling bin and realize I may have dumped my phone in there while dumping my empties.  I fish around for a minute, don’t find it, but short of dumping out the whole bin, I’m not going to be sure it’s not in there.   But I look at my watch and realize I don’t have time to do that because the effing garage closes 30 minutes after game time and 15-20 minutes have gone by already.  So, I check with customer service to see if a phone has been turned in (no, of course), and dejectedly leave.  I have never, ever been in such a bad mood leaving an Orioles victory.

So, that’s my tale of woe.  Even before the 9th to 12th innings and the cell phone fiasco, I’d told myself this was one of the worst experiences I’d ever had at a baseball game and that I’d never again be caught dead driving  from my house to Nats Park.  The rest was just icing on the frigging cake, and now my phone is probably at the bottom of some dumpster.   

At least we won the game.  If not, I’d probably be in the bottom of some dumpster too.

 

That's miserable. The food situation at any sports stadium is often ridiculous. The prices outrageous, and anytime during the game it takes 10, 15, 20+ minutes to go through the line, and the whole time you're thinking I'm supposed to be here watching the friggin' game not in line! My boys and I went to a hockey game in Chicago in March and two of us missed a good 10 minutes of the game getting some wildly overpriced chicken tenders.

The area around Nats' Park and Audi field is not great for vehicle access. I didn't have your experience, but was at DC United on Saturday and even 1.5 hours before kickoff it's a bit of a mess. Luckily I have a CAC card and can park on Ft. McNair for free. But getting out is a 30+ minute ordeal.

I would have lost my mind if I lost my cell phone at the game.

 

[Ripken]

Wow, that was a brutal read.  I kept hoping for some silver lining at the end (besides the W).  I've been there a few times and hate it.  Bad stadium, total mess getting in and out, super expensive, and so forth.  To lose a phone on top is terrible.  I was swearing at the TV in the 9th but you had it far worse.  Sorry, Frob.

[DrungoHazewood]

17 minutes ago, RZNJ said:

That story kept getting worse and worse but I was expecting the clincher of all time bad experiences, that you didn’t get to the parking lot on time and had to Uber or Taxi and pick your car up this morning.   You get chili at a ballgame?  You’re a brave man.

It's Ben's Chili Bowl, which is half-smoke sausages that you can get chili on. I don't know if the stadium versions are the same, but the original Ben's is a DC institution.

[.500_OR_BETTER]

You know who could have saved that phone, that's right.... Craig Kimbrel.

[Fiver6565]

I just don’t eat when I go to games. Eat before, or after if it’s one of those 4pm Saturday games (or both sometimes). Between the prices and the waiting it’s just not worth it, unless you get there really early and eat beforehand, which offsets the waiting part a bit. 

[Gurgi]

I remember when they opened the Stadium the Nats got a ton of flack for slow slow slow service with the food and vending lines.   I thought they had gotten better but obviously they have not.  

[SteveA]

31 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

Sucks to hear about that experience at Nats Stadium, @Frobby

If you ever go back, I'd suggest driving somewhere closer to the stadium and park somewhere else and take an Uber/Lyft to the stadium itself.  I used to live in Arlington, like 3-4 miles from Nats Park but I'd never think of driving there and there's no way in hell I'd take the Metro.  I'd either leave my car in the garage at work and go straight from there via Uber or go back to my apartment, drop the car there and get a ride to the stadium. 

Ubers can be pricey but if you don't use them all the time and need the convenience in a situation like this, they're worth it.  

 

I pretty much use the Metro when I go to Nats games.   I go to the Greenbelt station, it's about a 30 minute train ride and the Metro stop os 2 blocks from the ballpark.

Tuesday night I was home by 10:30, and i live in Elkridge so basically just south of Baltimore.

Occasionally if I drive there's a pay lot right off Capitol Street under the I395 overpass.   For a long time it was $10.   About half a mile walk to the stadium.   Before I developed arthritis in my knees that made that walk more difficult, I parked there many times.   Pretty quick access to 395 which, at least for me, means pretty quick access to 295.   There could be a lot of traffic, but it still wasn't too bad.   I haven't used that lot in a few years because of my knees and I believe it has gone up from $10 but I'm sure it's still fairly reasonable for that area.

[SteveA]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

I convinced my wife that we should go to the O’s - Nats game last night.  Boy, do I wish I hadn’t!

I went and bought upper deck seats halfway between home and 3B, five rows back. All-in cost, $87 on VividSeats, would have been more if I’d bought direct from the Nats.  And, I bought an advance parking spot at a lot several blocks from stadium, cost $25.50.

I live about 16 miles from Nats Park.  Game time 6:45, my map app says it will take an hour and 6 minutes.  We leave at 4:45, and I figure we’ll spend 30-45 minutes looking around the stadium and finding some veggie food for my wife.  Instead, we spend an hour and 53 minutes in the car.  It’s bumper to bumper for most of the trip, the map app keeps pushing our ETA further and further back, and when we finally get to the address where the parking lot is supposed to be, there’s no obvious parking lot entrance, and I have to circle the block in very slow traffic, take a lucky guess that the lot entrance is off an alley between two buildings.  Eventually we find it and park, and the parking attendant tells us that the lot closes 30 minutes after the game.   (The website had said 60 minutes.)

We walk to the main entrance, it’s now game time, and it’s a mob scene.  There’s a woman with a bullhorn telling people it will be faster to walk to one of the other entrances, so we do, which takes several minutes.  We get there and there’s a single-file line of a couple hundred people waiting to get in.  We wait that out, which takes 10-12 minutes, and by the time we’re inside the stadium it’s 7:02 and the first inning is over.  But my wife needs her veggie food, so we find the one stand that has some, and as we stand there, I see an Oriole trying to score, but there’s a pillar blocking my view of home plate and I have to guess from the roar of the crowd that the runner was thown out.

My wife’s food in hand, we look for a stairway or escalator to the upper level, and finally find the longest series of ramps you have ever seen in your life.  It takes eight turns of the ramp, each one several hundred feet long, to reach the top.  By the time we are finally at our seats, the Nats already have scored in the second inning and the Orioles are up in the third inning and already to the last batter in the order.  

Meanwhile, I haven’t eaten but I want to actually watch the game for a while, so I wait until the bottom of the 6th and get in line at Ben’s Chili Bowl, figuring that will take no more than half an inning, but no, it takes a full inning and I miss the O’s scoring their third run in the process.

Well, I don’t need to tell you what unfolded in the 9th through 12th innings and how excruciating it was, but let’s just say I was already in an extreme state of agitation before any of that happened and my mood got darker and darker and barely brightened when we actually won.  As we leave our seats, I pick up an empty water bottle and beer can of mine and dump them in a nearby recycling bin.   My wife says she needs to use the ladies’ room and while I’m waiting, I reach into my pocket for my cell phone and…it’s not there.  I want to run back to our seats to look, but my wife is still in the ladies’ room, so I have to wait for what seems like an eternity.  She finally emerges, I dash back to our seats, but the phone is nowhere to be found.  As I come onto the concourse, I spy the recycling bin and realize I may have dumped my phone in there while dumping my empties.  I fish around for a minute, don’t find it, but short of dumping out the whole bin, I’m not going to be sure it’s not in there.   But I look at my watch and realize I don’t have time to do that because the effing garage closes 30 minutes after game time and 15-20 minutes have gone by already.  So, I check with customer service to see if a phone has been turned in (no, of course), and dejectedly leave.  I have never, ever been in such a bad mood leaving an Orioles victory.

So, that’s my tale of woe.  Even before the 9th to 12th innings and the cell phone fiasco, I’d told myself this was one of the worst experiences I’d ever had at a baseball game and that I’d never again be caught dead driving  from my house to Nats Park.  The rest was just icing on the frigging cake, and now my phone is probably at the bottom of some dumpster.   

At least we won the game.  If not, I’d probably be in the bottom of some dumpster too.

 

Sorry to hear, horrible night.

[Ohfan67]

Very sorry. The loss of your photos is heartbreaking. 

[Can_of_corn]

5 minutes ago, Ohfan67 said:

Very sorry. The loss of your photos is heartbreaking. 

Depending on settings some photos may have been saved to the cloud and could be recovered.

[Ripken]

27 minutes ago, SteveA said:

I pretty much use the Metro when I go to Nats games.   I go to the Greenbelt station, it's about a 30 minute train ride and the Metro stop os 2 blocks from the ballpark.

Tuesday night I was home by 10:30, and i live in Elkridge so basically just south of Baltimore.

Geez, Elkridge.  I lived there from 1997-02 because my wife worked at Legg Mason in the city.  Crazy how time flies. 

I'm a metro rider whenever I can.  I get that people hate it but I hate trying to drive and park even more.

[Frobby]

1 hour ago, DrungoHazewood said:

It's Ben's Chili Bowl, which is half-smoke sausages that you can get chili on. I don't know if the stadium versions are the same, but the original Ben's is a DC institution.

That's what I ate, and it was delicious.   Any consequences didn't manifest until today, happy to say.  That was probably the highlight of my night.   Also, it only took me maybe 30 minutes to get home, so I could stew for an hour and calm myself down.   Actually ended up watching the re-broadcast of innings 3-6 and turned it off after Gunnar's homer.

[Griffey]

Sorry to hear about that, Frobby.  We went last night and splurged a little on tickets (3rd row behind O's dugout) and parking (Garage C, which is attached to the ballpark) since it was my wife's first game at Nats Park.  Coming up from Northern VA we hit a ton of traffic getting to and crossing the Woodrow Wilson Bridge, but after that we got to the park relatively quickly and were in our seats 1/2 hour before first pitch.  Didn't really feel like waiting in line for a specialty food item so we just went through their basic food line and got a grilled sausage, which was awful (not sure what I got heartburn from, the sausage or Kimbrel's performance).  Traffic getting out of the garage after the game and onto 395 was a bit of a nightmare, too.

As mentioned, the game drove all of us nuts, but we enjoyed the O's fans taking over the ballpark and were happy/relieved with the final score.  My wife gave the stadium good reviews, but it just feels like such a blah environment, nothing really special or unique about the design or atmosphere.

[Roy Firestone]

3 hours ago, Frobby said:

I convinced my wife that we should go to the O’s - Nats game last night.  Boy, do I wish I hadn’t!

I went and bought upper deck seats halfway between home and 3B, five rows back. All-in cost, $87 on VividSeats, would have been more if I’d bought direct from the Nats.  And, I bought an advance parking spot at a lot several blocks from stadium, cost $25.50.

I live about 16 miles from Nats Park.  Game time 6:45, my map app says it will take an hour and 6 minutes.  We leave at 4:45, and I figure we’ll spend 30-45 minutes looking around the stadium and finding some veggie food for my wife.  Instead, we spend an hour and 53 minutes in the car.  It’s bumper to bumper for most of the trip, the map app keeps pushing our ETA further and further back, and when we finally get to the address where the parking lot is supposed to be, there’s no obvious parking lot entrance, and I have to circle the block in very slow traffic, take a lucky guess that the lot entrance is off an alley between two buildings.  Eventually we find it and park, and the parking attendant tells us that the lot closes 30 minutes after the game.   (The website had said 60 minutes.)

We walk to the main entrance, it’s now game time, and it’s a mob scene.  There’s a woman with a bullhorn telling people it will be faster to walk to one of the other entrances, so we do, which takes several minutes.  We get there and there’s a single-file line of a couple hundred people waiting to get in.  We wait that out, which takes 10-12 minutes, and by the time we’re inside the stadium it’s 7:02 and the first inning is over.  But my wife needs her veggie food, so we find the one stand that has some, and as we stand there, I see an Oriole trying to score, but there’s a pillar blocking my view of home plate and I have to guess from the roar of the crowd that the runner was thown out.

My wife’s food in hand, we look for a stairway or escalator to the upper level, and finally find the longest series of ramps you have ever seen in your life.  It takes eight turns of the ramp, each one several hundred feet long, to reach the top.  By the time we are finally at our seats, the Nats already have scored in the second inning and the Orioles are up in the third inning and already to the last batter in the order.  

Meanwhile, I haven’t eaten but I want to actually watch the game for a while, so I wait until the bottom of the 6th and get in line at Ben’s Chili Bowl, figuring that will take no more than half an inning, but no, it takes a full inning and I miss the O’s scoring their third run in the process.

Well, I don’t need to tell you what unfolded in the 9th through 12th innings and how excruciating it was, but let’s just say I was already in an extreme state of agitation before any of that happened and my mood got darker and darker and barely brightened when we actually won.  As we leave our seats, I pick up an empty water bottle and beer can of mine and dump them in a nearby recycling bin.   My wife says she needs to use the ladies’ room and while I’m waiting, I reach into my pocket for my cell phone and…it’s not there.  I want to run back to our seats to look, but my wife is still in the ladies’ room, so I have to wait for what seems like an eternity.  She finally emerges, I dash back to our seats, but the phone is nowhere to be found.  As I come onto the concourse, I spy the recycling bin and realize I may have dumped my phone in there while dumping my empties.  I fish around for a minute, don’t find it, but short of dumping out the whole bin, I’m not going to be sure it’s not in there.   But I look at my watch and realize I don’t have time to do that because the effing garage closes 30 minutes after game time and 15-20 minutes have gone by already.  So, I check with customer service to see if a phone has been turned in (no, of course), and dejectedly leave.  I have never, ever been in such a bad mood leaving an Orioles victory.

So, that’s my tale of woe.  Even before the 9th to 12th innings and the cell phone fiasco, I’d told myself this was one of the worst experiences I’d ever had at a baseball game and that I’d never again be caught dead driving  from my house to Nats Park.  The rest was just icing on the frigging cake, and now my phone is probably at the bottom of some dumpster.   

At least we won the game.  If not, I’d probably be in the bottom of some dumpster too.

 

I've loved baseball as much as anyone for 60 years..all of it as an Oriole fan. Between the cost of ticket prices , a 90 minute drive(Anaheim) to the park in bumper to bumper traffic...the crowds, and the pitch black freeway with little illumination to see the exits in the car going home....I have decided to limit or end going to an Orioles road game in Anaheim...especially when its on TV.If you gave me FREE tickets (and I get them usually) I wont go at night any more. It's just not worth the trouble.And it pains me to say it. I cant imagine what a lot of people go through to see a sporting event...and Oriole baseball is THE sporting event for me. I know its a bit  easier at OPCY, but not here for me in California..

[Roy Firestone]

2 hours ago, Frobby said:

I routinely leave for O’s games 42 miles from my house with less time to spare than I did for this one.  Honestly I think the route the map app sent me on was doomed to get worse during the time I was traveling.  

And another thing is just the cost of the tickets and parking compared to equivalent seats and parking at Camden Yards.   Probably would have cost no more than $65-75 compared to the $112 I paid for that crappy experience.  
 

I have a feeling Craig Kimbrel's "crappy experience" was...er..."crappier"....last night.