I attended the Hella Mega Tour concert at Nats Park in Washington DC on Sunday evening. It was nice to do something "normal" again in seeing Green Day, Weezer, and opening act The Interrupters even though Fall Out Boy didn't perform due to one of the band's team testing positive for COVID. So even normal isn't really normal when one of the acts can't play and many of the attendees (including me) wore masks throughout the show unless this is what counts as normal right now. I just wrote normal so many times that I don't know what that word means or if I spelled it correctly.
While I'll share more pictures and videos below, I have a question. Let's say that you attend a football game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Dallas Cowboys. If you are a fan of one of the teams, you might wear some type of Steelers or Cowboys clothing. You probably wouldn't wear a New England Patriots jersey or a Seattle Seahawks T-shirt. I mention this because at the concert, I saw people wearing T-shirts of the following musicians:
The Rolling Stones
Ramones
AC/DC
Foo Fighters
Run-D.M.C.
Nirvana
Slipknot
Jimmy Buffett
There are probably more that I'm missing, but the point is that none of these bands performed in DC on Sunday. Obviously, music is different from sports. While there's a rivalry between the Baltimore Ravens and the Steelers, there isn't any animosity (that I know of) between Weezer and The Rolling Stones or their fans. What do you think? Is it appropriate to wear a band's T-shirt to a concert of a completely different band?
This is the start of the Green Day show and definitely not suitable for work.
Even though you can see "Holiday," possibly my favorite Green Day song, above, this is from a different perspective.
If you ever wanted to see the chorus of Weezer's "Hash Pipe" signed, you're welcome!
Weezer has a new song called "All My Favorite Songs" featuring the band AJR. When Weezer performed this song, I sent a 30-second video to my wife to show my kids since they like AJR and know the song. My kids were convinced that the video was of AJR, even though the band name Weezer was prominently displayed on the stage!
Finally, even though Max Scherzer was traded to Los Angeles, he's still watching you!
Even though it is mid-August and there is still a month and a half left in regular season, the Washington Nationals have essentially won the National League East division barring one of the biggest collapses in baseball history. Therefore, the team can afford to lose a few games and let some of their best players rest. (The Washington Post's Barry Svrluga basically wrote the same thing on Monday.) That's what happened Sunday when I attended the Nats-San Francisco Giants game.
Meanwhile, prior to Sunday, the Moose (now 6) has been to two Major League Baseball games. In his first game, Max Scherzer threw a no-hitter and was one strike away from a perfect game. In the second game, the Pirates defeated the Nats in 18 innings. Although we left in the 15th, we saw two Presidential mascot races and participated in both the 7th and 14th inning stretch. The Moose was due to attend a regular, normal game.
With the Friday night game postponed due to rain and thunderstorms, the Nationals and Giants played a split double-header on Sunday with the first game starting at 1:05 and the second at 7:05. Apparently, Nats manager Dusty Baker gave Max Scherzer an option about which game he wanted to pitch. He picked the night game, meaning that we got to see the highly anticipated A.J. Cole-Chris Stratton pitching duel. Baker also seemed to give most of his veteran players the option of playing the day or evening game, meaning that we got to see Adrian Sanchez instead of Daniel Murphy, Andrew Stevenson instead of Michael A. Taylor or Howie Kendrick, and Jose Lobaton instead of Matt Wieters. With Bryce Harper going on the DL, we got to see a truly lousy Nationals line-up.
Let's go to the notes:
- We had really, really great seats. As an extra bonus, we were in the shade!
- Sunday was Boy Scouts game at Nats Park, so Baker and the Nats clearly DID NOT THINK OF THE CHILDREN when making the line-up.
- Due to the double-header, the Nats also cancelled the kids run around the bases activity they usually have after Sunday games. WOULD SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!
- Chris Stratton's parents missed a golden opportunity to name their child Briggs. The middle name could have been "And" or just something that starts with N.
- If Stratton becomes an All-Star, this will be his breakout game, meaning that perhaps The Moose's streak of seeing something significant stays intact. Stratton struck out 10 in 6 & 2/3 scoreless innings. This was his 2nd major league win and first as a starter.
- After the 8th inning, The Moose declared that he needed to poop. I asked him at least three times if he was sure but he said yes. Stadium bathrooms, especially after 8 innings, are disgusting. I asked an usher if there were any family restrooms nearby, and she looked at me incredulously and simply pointed us to the nearest men's room. Fortunately, we found a stall that wasn't awful, I cleaned it the best I could, and placed three layers of toilet paper between the toilet seat and The Moose.
- After an awful weekend in Charlottesville, I totally understand Thomas Jefferson just wanting to watch a baseball game.
Me: Would you like to take a picture with one of the President mascots?
The Moose: No. They're kind of scary. (I'm slightly paraphrasing The Moose here.)
- Random question #1: People remove hats for the national anthem, but are you supposed to remove your hat for G-d Bless America?
- Game one of the double-header ended with Howie Kendrick striking out. Game two ended with Kendrick hitting a walk-off grand slam. I wonder if this was the first time in baseball history where the same player was the last player to hit in both games with these results.
- Random question #2: After the first game, everyone had to leave the stadium with the gates reopening at 6:00 for game #2 of the double-header. How difficult would it have been to hide somewhere in the stadium for an hour?
- I didn't expect to see this being sold at the stadium. I wonder if I'll see them during Rosh Hashanah services.
- With the Nationals offense doing little, the crowd was its loudest when booing San Francisco relief pitcher Hunter Strickland. Strickland purposely hit Bryce Harper with a pitch in May. Strickland then gave up a 2-run home run to Anthony Rendon. AND WE NEVER HEARD FROM STRICKLAND AGAIN! (Unless you watched the 2nd game of the double-header where he pitched again.)
For more about the game, check out MLB.com and ESPN.
On Sunday, I took The Moose to his second professional baseball game to see the Pittsburgh Pirates against the Washington Nationals. The Moose witnessed a no-hitter and near perfect game in his first game last year, so there was no way that this game could match its significance, right? Please note that this post mixes a recap of the game with my own thoughts and quotes from my five year old. For example, upon seeing Pirates first basemen John Jaso, The Moose said, "He has girl hair." Back to the game.
All-Star and former Cy Young Award winner Max Scherzer, the pitcher who threw the no-hitter last season, matched up against Pirates rookie Chad Kuhl. Not an ideal match-up for the Bucs. As I know now though, DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE CHAD KUHL. All Kuhl did was throw 6 scoreless innings of one-hit baseball. More on Kuhl later. With the Pirates leading 1-0 in the bottom of the ninth, the Nationals played AC/DC's Thunderstruck as Pirates pitcher Mark Melancon warmed up. The Nats probably thought they were pumping up the crowd, but this is also Melancon's entrance music. Arguably the best closer in baseball over the past 3-4 seasons, Melancon retired the first two Nationals before All-Star and this season's best hitter, Daniel Murphy pinch hit. With a 2-2 count, Murphy did this.
And this was The Moose's reaction.
(Actually this picture came later, but seemed appropriate to go with the huge home run.)
And what was a not too exciting of a game turned very interesting. The game went on to the 10th inning and then the 11th. And the 12th. Throughout this, my friend and I discussed how long we would stay. Although we were in the shade, it was still over 90 degrees and we had three boys ages 5, 6, and 9, who we knew only had so much patience. In the middle of the 13th, there was a second Presidents race. The Moose was a bit freaked out by the giant Presidents. (Yet, when we left, he wanted to stay to see another Presidents race even though that wouldn't have happened until the 22nd inning! By the way, major props to the people in the Presidents costumes who were still there well after all beer sales ended and most food concessions closed.) And then there was the traditional 14th inning stretch! We moved our seats a few times, once in the 10th or 11th inning to get out of the sun which started hitting our backs and then to seats on the third base line about 20-25 rows from the field. Again, being in the shade was huge!
We interrupt baseball for The Moose's thoughts on Nationals outfielder Jayson Werth.
"He has a scary beard."
"That's the bad guy."
(When in the on-deck circle) "The bad guy is going to be next."
I can't disagree with any of these assessments!
We made it through the 15th inning, approximately 5 hours in the stadium, and that was it. Of the announced attendance of 32,775, we outlasted at least 20,000 people. That's a lot of baseball for three little guys. While walking to the parking lot in the 16th, we heard a loud roar. Did the Nationals have a walk-off win? Fortunately, no. As I heard on the radio, Pirates Josh Harrison hit a double, but Eric Fryer was thrown out at the plate by a perfect relay from Nats' center fielder Michael Taylor to SS Danny Espinosa to catcher Wilson Ramos.
My reaction:
With no traffic around the stadium and (amazingly!) on the drive back home, the 17th inning just ended when I turned off the radio. A few minutes later, I turned on the TV to see that the Pirates were ahead 2-1. WHAT HAPPENED? Starling Marte happened:
Jon Niese gave up two hits in the bottom of the 18th, but struck out Espinosa to give the Pirates the win. A few more thoughts about the game:
- Including Sunday, Chad Kuhl has started four baseball games. He pitched against probably the best pitcher in baseball Clayton Kershaw, the May 2016 AL pitcher of the month and should have been all star Rich Hill, three-time all star Jon Lester and now Scherzer. The Pirates are now 4-0 in his starts. Can he start against some below average pitchers some time?
- When I was in college, I had an internship with a Pittsburgh-area Congressman. We also had an office softball team and played against a local fire department twice (and against a Senator's staff too...we destroyed them). Anyway, I annoyed many of the firefighters for constantly getting on base in our games. I was not a power hitter, yet I managed to get hits through seeing-eye singles or balls that landed between the infielders and outfielders. Why do I mention this? Pirates rookie Adam Frazier is me 20 years later. (Well, at least in this analogy.) When you look at the Pirates line-up, teams are going to be concerned with Marte, McCutchen, Freese, Harrison, Mercer, and others. Yet, Frazier went 3 for 6 Sunday with two walks. For the season, he's now hitting .355 with a .412 on-base percentage. He must be such a pest for opponents.
- The Moose's thoughts on National's 23 year-old Trea Turner: "He is a kid."
So The Moose has now been to two games, one a no-hitter and the other went 18 innings. He's going to be disappointed someday when we attend a regular 4-2 game!
Many television shows, magazines, websites and newspapers have best and worst of 2015 lists. Well, I do too, and while mine is probably not nearly as good as their lists, I think that my list is more entertaining.
Best TV Show of 2015: Fargo
Game of Thrones is always amazing, and while I don't see every episode, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver is both educational and extremely entertaining. I also always enjoy Brooklyn Nine-Nine. However, my favorite show this past year was Fargo. Although season one was in 2014, I didn't actually watch it until late 2015. And I couldn't stop watching it. Billy Bob Thornton was incredible in such a fascinating character, and the rest of the cast was amazing. I've recorded all of season two and am finally going to start watching it any day now.
Worst TV Show of 2015: The Mysteries of Laura
I've never actually seen this show, but the fact that it wasn't cancelled cost me The Ted Marshall Open TV Death Pool championship for the 2014-2015 season. I seriously have no idea how this show got renewed and is still on the air.
Best Song of 2015...
My rule is that the best song must be from a video that I posted on my blog in 2015. Your nominees are:
Renegades by X Ambassadors Ex's and Oh's by Elle King Uma Thurman by Fall Out Boy Beggin for Thread by Banks Kathleen by Catfish and the Bottlemen
And the winner is: Kathleen!
Worst Song of 2015: Dooo It! by Miley Cyrus
The Video is NSFW due to language...and for it being a terrible song and terrible video.
Best Movie I Saw In The Theater: Trainwreck
I saw two whole movies in the theater in 2015. That's double what I saw in 2014! Trainwreck was much funnier than I expected. Surprisingly enjoyable appearances by John Cena and LeBron James. Oh, you may have heard that Amy Schumer was in it too.
Worst Movie I Saw in The Theater: The Martian
Okay, so The Martian was better than Trainwreck, but it was a weird experience for me. I finished the book only a few days before I saw the film, so I compared the two constantly. While I won't give away much, there was a part in the movie where Matt Damon drives thousands of miles across Mars. In the book, this was quite an eventful trip. In the movie, driving across Mars was as difficult as driving from New York to Chicago on the interstate in perfect weather. I was also frustrated by the ending. It's really my fault though. I should have known better than to finish the book and see the movie so close together.
Best Book I Read in 2015: My Sunshine Away: a novel by M.O. Walsh
Here's the description: A man reflects on the summer of his fourteenth year, where in Baton Rouge he fell in love with a golden-haired girl across the street before an unspeakable crime shattered illusions in his seemingly idyllic neighborhood.
My Sunshine Away is a coming of age book, but quite dark because of the crime that I guess I can't speak about. The book was very well written and the neighborhood certainly had some fascinating characters. I highly recommend it.
Honorable mentions: Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng and The Martian: a novel by Andy Weir.
Worst Book I Read in 2015: Go Set A Watchman by Harper Lee.
To Kill a Mockingbird is one of my favorite books all of time, so I felt like I had to read this book. It actually felt like a homework assignment reading the "new" Harper Lee book at times. There were parts that were really good. Lee also gave what appeared to be an accurate description of what it was like to live in the South during a specific time period. However, Atticus Finch, though fictional, is supposed to be perfect (at least in my mind) and some of his views in Go Set a Watchman don't mesh with how most people in the real world view him.
Best Sports Moment: Max Scherzer's No Hitter
I didn't like the fact that this occurred against the Pirates, but seeing a no-hitter live and at my son's first baseball game was priceless.
Worst Sports Moment of 2015: The Pirates Losing the Wild Card Game
The Pirates had the second best record in all of baseball and were rewarded by getting to host the NL Cy Young Award Winner. Naturally, Arrieta dominated. Here's what ESPN's Jayson Stark wrote about Arrieta:
1) Over his last 18 starts of the season, the Cubs went 17-1 -- and in the only loss, they got no-hit (of course they did) by Cole Hamels. (2) Over his last 20 starts, he hit as many homers as he allowed (two). And (3) if you'd started your clicker on Aug. 1, you'd have counted 269 pitchers who allowed at least four earned runs in an inning. And while all that was going on, Arrieta was also allowing four earned runs -- in two months.
Stupid Cubs. Stupid Arrieta.
Best Blog Post: (Tie) My Summer of Sean series & a special TMI Thursday
The Summer of Sean series chronicled part of my incredible summer of 2000. Unfortunately, I only wrote a few posts. When I have free time, maybe I'll continue this series. I also shared what really happens in my bedroom on nearly a nightly basis.
Worst Blog Post: My Interview With Dr. Christopher Geary About Big Ben's Injury
Based on his position as an Orthopedic Surgeon and Chief of Sports Medicine at Tufts University Medical Center, you would think that Dr. Geary would be better than sharing wild Tweets. He also didn't give much in my interview with him or come close to apologizing for declaring that Big Ben was out for the season.
I hope that you had a great 2015 and a better 2016!
I attended The Pirates-Nationals game back in June where Max Scherzer threw a no-hitter. After the game, I received an e-mail from the Nationals offering a special commemorative ticket with a $5 donation to the Washington Nationals Dream Foundation. Since I did not have a formal ticket stub for this game, only a print out on an 8.5 x 11 piece of paper (I hate the trend of there being fewer and fewer actual tickets now), I bought two tickets to commemorate my son's first baseball game. Here's the ticket that I received on Wednesday:
Pretty cool. There's just one big problem. There is no section 31 at Nationals Park. There is no Row MS at Nationals Park either.
Plus, why are both of my tickets seat #1? We can't both be in the same seat. If we were, I'd hope the Nats would only charge me for the price of one ticket (especially since my 4 year-old sat on my lap for probably 7 of the 9 innings).
One of my dreams/bucket list items is to attend a no-hitter in person. In July 2001, I saw Todd Ritchie (yes, Todd Ritchie) go 8 1/3 innings before giving up a single. After seeing probably over 100 baseball games in my lifetime, that was the closest I've come to seeing a no-hitter. Meanwhile, I took my son (The Moose, age 4) to his first baseball game on Saturday night. He has now attended one single baseball game and has witnessed a no-hitter (and almost the 22nd perfect major league game since 1900). He has no idea that this is a big deal. On to my notes and thoughts on the game and taking The Moose to his first game.
- Breaking news: Max Scherzer is really, really good. Maybe that's why the Nationals paid him over $200 million. I'm a Pirates fan and definitely wanted the Bucs to win, but I can appreciate an amazing pitching performance and found myself rooting for a perfect game in the top of the 9th.
- After the first inning, The Moose told me that he wanted to go home. That's when I went into food mode. I offered him a fruit bar that I had in my bag and then we quickly went to the concession stand to get french fries and a Sprite. He loved the Sprite and made it through the rest of the game (sitting on my lap for nearly all of it) without any complaints.
- In either the 7th inning or top of the 8th inning, I looked at the scoreboard and mentioned to my friend that we were watching a perfect game. We knew it was a no-hitter but had no idea we were watching a potential perfect game until then.
- I did a terrible job of taking pictures during the game. Really, I just wanted to make sure my kid was happy and that I didn't lose him in the crowd of over 40,000. I did take this picture of several members of the Pirates walking to the bullpen before the game. Plus, both Bryce Harper and Andrew McCutchen sat in my section!
- I also should have taken a picture of someone wearing a Pirates' Garrett Jones jersey.
- Unwritten rules in baseball are stupid. In the 8th inning, the Nats shifted against Pedro Alvarez. Pedro could have bunted towards the deserted third base line to reach on a single, but that's not permitted in baseball. Well, if it was a 1-0 game, maybe that would have been a little acceptable, but baseball folks would have gone insane if Pedro did this on Saturday. If you think the reaction to Jose Tabata reaching on a hit-by-pitch was crazy, Pedro would have been vilified even more.
- The Nationals had a promotion on Saturday where after the game, Seniors could stroll the bases. During the game, I talked with my friend about the fact I tweaked my knee (for the second time in a month) earlier in the day working as a soccer referee), probably will need bifocals soon and that I recently went to the dentist and learned that I have receding gums. Basically, I could have been eligible to run the bases!
- When we got home, all The Moose talked about to my wife was chocolate syrup. Naturally, she had not idea what he was talking about. I mean why would there be chocolate syrup at a baseball game? Here's the answer:
MASN's Dan Kolko did not look happy about Jayson Werth dumping chocolate syrup on him. I'd bet $10 that Werth doesn't pay the dry-cleaning bill.
- The Moose wasn't very impressed by the Presidents/Pierogi race. I think he found the characters a little scary.
- I'd like to give the Nationals credit for posting the artist and song title for each hitter's walk-up music on the scoreboard. That was a nice touch particularly since I didn't know many songs.
- Quick rant: I love keeping ticket stubs of sporting events/concerts I attend. However, there are less and less ticket stubs these days and you generally print off your tickets now. Even Nats season ticket holders get a card that they swipe or scan at the gate instead of receiving individual tickets. Here is part of my ticket from Saturday's game that is now folded up on a regular 8.5 x 11 piece of paper.
- I don't ever want to drive through a hurricane, but I feel like I got a taste of what it's like to do so going home after the game. There were massive thunderstorms on Saturday evening with extremely heavy rain and lightning everywhere. I'm glad that the game was at 4:05 since a 7:05 game would have been postponed.
I received a message in my Spam folder recently from someone named BadGirl28. Yes, it really was a Spam folder. Anyway, I was curious about why BadGirl28 went by BadGirl28. My theory was that maybe she was a big fan of Marshall Faulk. If she's from Pittsburgh, maybe she loves Brandon Cumpton, Ian Cole and/or Cortez Allen. If she's in the DC area, perhaps she is a big fan of Jayson Werth (and she probably supports his abuse of mascots).
Unfortunately, her email doesn't give any information about her favorite player. Instead, all I got was this:
Name: Adriana
Age: 21
Eye Color: Light Blue / Brown
Height: 5"6
Hair Color: Blonde / Light Brown
Submissive: Yes
Sexual orientation: Bi-Sexual
Star sign: Sagittarius
About me: Into being tied up and used like the little slut i am :)
send me a quick text so i know youre real (with a number that I'm not sharing here)
I'm really curious about the eye color thing. Is one eye light blue and the other brown? Is she like Washington Nationals pitcher Max Scherzer?
I also got messages from BadGirl22 and BadGirl25 with the exact same message, so I'm thinking that maybe there is no significance to BadGirl's numbers. Wait, stop the presses!
Is this the same Adriana from a few years ago? If so, I'm happy that she's just giving basic information rather writing a long message. Based just on her last sentence, her grammar is still poor.
Welcome to Sean's Ramblings! If you're looking for thoughts on pop culture, music, fun and informative links, random DC and Pittsburgh info, sports (particularly Pittsburgh sports), and just what's going on in my life, then you're come to the right place.
Any questions, comments or links? Contact me at seanramblings[at]yahoo[dot]com.
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