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

[24fps]

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.

 

The Nats series was cursed from the first pitch on Tuesday.  Many of us are glad to see it in the rear view mirror but this story is one for the ages.

[LookinUp]

OPACY is tougher to get to now as well after the Key Bridge accident. 95 and 295 north are a nightmare.

[KojiSplit]

Sorry for Frobby and his experience. My friend had a near identical one minus losing the cell phone part driving from Rockville last year for the O’s at nats game.

I told him to take the metro and he ended up driving and let’s just say with the traffic and the garage which took about 40 mins to park when he was a block away and some of the other issues at the park left such a horrible taste he’s vowed to never go back.

I used to live in Bethesda and now Old Town (Alexandria) so I’ve always taken the metro into nats or Hoyas games but that’s all dropped down considerably thanks to the Hoyas being terrible and constant issues with the metro which seems to never be resolved.

If you haven’t already I would jump on your iCloud on your computer and see if anything was backed up without you noticing. Good luck 

 

 

 

[sportsfan8703]

The move I like for Nats games is to park at the Greenbelt Metro, take the metro in.  Then either take the metro back to Greenbelt after the game or just get an uber/lyft.  Traffic on 295 is literally hell on earth.  

[lazyjc22]

Living in Northern Virginia all my life, I welcomed the Nats for the sole reason that I thought I'd get to see more MLB games every year.  All these years later, and I still go to way more games at Camden Yards each year than Nats Park.  It probably takes me 15-30 minutes longer to get to Baltimore from my neck of the woods (Haymarket/Gainesville) then to Downtown DC.  

[Philip]

4 hours ago, Frobby said:

Thanks for the sympathy.  I always keep my phone on low vibrate, so calling it wouldn’t have done any good.  I also hadn’t backed it up to the cloud, so I’ve lost a lot of data, including some voice mails I’d saved from my dad, who died two years ago.   It just blows.  

That is so sad. I’m sorry. I have, on my phone,  the chat thread from my deceased step-daughter, who died in 2016. I would hate to lose it.

I generally dislike going to a nearly sold out game, for all the mentioned reasons.
The twelve A’s season ticket holders don’t know how good they have it, in at least one category.

[emmett16]

I also live in Bethesda about 16 miles from the stadium. It’s faster to go to Camden Yards a lot of nights than it is to go Nat’s stadium.  Especially coming home, can get back in about 45 minutes.  Cutting across DC is a nightmare even w/o rush hour traffic. Their stadium is awful and it’s incredibly expensive.  Add in the finance bros in sweater vests on lap tops during the game and it’s just a weird scene.  Every time I’ve gone I’ve wished I hadn’t.  
 

[NashLumber]

7 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.

 

This whole experience sounds like one of my anxiety nightmares. They usually involve auto-fill with my iPhone or some hacking of my phone when I'm trying to get directions. 

Sorry you had this happen. Clearly it was one of "those days". 

Edited May 9 by NashLumber

[NashLumber]

And, oh man, losing those voicemails from your late father. I hope there is a way to recover them. That hits me. I have some from Weams that I'm trying to hang onto. They made it to my newest phone purchase. It would crush me if I were to lose them. 

[HbgOsFan]

I just saw the thread.  One of the worst things to happen to one of the best posters on this board.  Frobby, I am really sorry - you, the least of any one, deserved this.

[TonySoprano]

1 hour ago, NashLumber said:

And, oh man, losing those voicemails from your late father. I hope there is a way to recover them. That hits me. I have some from Weams that I'm trying to hang onto. They made it to my newest phone purchase. It would crush me if I were to lose them. 

Yep.  That's something I would find a way to back up on iCloud if possible.

[OnlyOneOriole]

7 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.

 

Feel for you.  This is why so many people have given up going to live games and would rather watch on their 72 inch at home.  Sometimes it is just a giant hassle and expensive at the same time. 

 

At least they won.

[CallMeBrooksie]

DC is a pretty good public transit town by North American standards and worlds ahead of Baltimore in this area(an admittedly low bar), and Nats Park as well as Capital One arena have really great transit connectivity via metro and major frequent bus routes.

Driving to Nats Park on a weeknight really feels like a self-inflicted wound Metro always gets me in and out stress free from northern VA.

Sorry it was such a crappy night, @Frobby . Next time, I'd give park and ride at Metro a shot. Some of the silver line stations are quite a journey all the way to Navy Yard, but at least it's stress free and dependable (much more dependable in recent years with new leadership)

 

[Number5]

8 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.

 

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?

[EddeeEddee]

7 hours 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.

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.

I haven't lived in Baltimore/DC area in a long time, but as someone who visits a fair amount my impression these days is...

Don't drive into DC if you can avoid it.  Take the DC Metro whenever possible.  Or is this not possible or convenient for some people when it comes to Nats games?  I've never been to a Nationals game so I don't know from experience.

Driving into downtown Baltimore is fine and still really the only option for most people since Baltimore public transportation serves very little of the suburbs.  

Are most people in agreement or are there other takes on this?