The First Sports Bar, Or: How I Learned To Stop Caring And Love Baseball Cards

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I’m 33 years old and I should be retired by now. As an impressionable and extremely lazy 11 year old, The Guy Behind The Case (official title) at the baseball card shop assured me this would be the case.

If everything had gone according to plan, I would have paid this months cable bill with a handful of Donruss ’89’s from that one factory set I still had laying around.

Instead? I’m pecking at keys, with boxes of Bobby Bonilla rookie cards in the darkest corner of my most unfrequented closet.

FSB In The Stands: The Yankee Effect At Nationals Park

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Setting sun on a gorgeous night at Nationals Park. Taylor Adkins/FakeSportsBar.com

 

“That’s why you go to games!”, I excitedly shouted to anyone within earshot as I strutted out of Nationals Park after a thrilling mid May, walk off victory this past Tuesday.

I’ve traveled home from Nationals Park 59 times in my life, but this last visit was different. In fact lots about Tuesday night felt different from the typical venture to Half Street.

The New York Yankees were in town.

To Live And Root In DC

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Len Redkoles – Getty Images

“Don’t tell me this town ain’t got no heart; you just gotta poke around.”

-Jerry Garcia/Robert Hunter

 

A funny thing happened on the way to another Redskins dominated spring here in DC. Other teams were winning, often in dramatic, headline grabbing fashion. It’s true; on big stages in front of big crowds with big stakes on the line, DC was winning (and rising of course; #DCRising).

Was DC becoming a “sports town”? Had it already been one that had just been laying dormant prior to this B-12 shot of winning?