time in the fenway bleachers. tribe still took 2 out of 3 at boston, so boston fans couldn't give me too much grief for my indians jersey. we saw one of the most amazing catches i have ever seen, that's the great thing about baseball, no matter how many games you've seen, you will probably always see something new in each additional game. fenway bleachers pretty tame, especially compared to wrigley (next stop)...

flew into chicago on thursday decked out in full nats regalia. cubs fans are laid back in general, i seemed to be considered more of an oddity than an opponent! i was asked quite a bit, "are you really from dc?" but when i replied "yeah, and i came up here just for this series" i got instant cred with the locals! plus, the nats swept cubs in the three game set in which we had our ace and our 4th and 5th starters going against prior, zambrano and their 5th starter!!!  also made usual wrigleyville rounds of the cubby bear, murphy's bleachers, and other great bars.

friday i had grandstand seats behind home plate on thursday. great pitching matchup, nats pitched livan hernandez (just named to this yrs all star team) vs. cubs mark prior, winning 4-3. dusty baker is a moron, he basically lost that game, him and jeromy burnitz, who was the tying run on 3rd in the 8th inning until got PICKED OFF! haha! game had a lot of drama, including a 2 run cubs HR that would have tied the game at 4 that was ultimately called back (correct call)! wow, what a game!

saturday was awesome, 75 degree sunny day, spent the morning on a 35 foot sailboat on lake michigan then cabbed directly from the marina to wrigley field. not to mention i had bleacher seats w/ my sister and two friends. we won this game 3-2 (its not really a nats win unless its by one run... and only one run)! i made friends with cubs fans around us, even stood up and cheered nats good plays without fear of (much) reprisal. between CF and RF, about 8 rows off field. cubs bleachers were a party as usual, great time. my cell rang in the 3rd inning, i didn't think to answer until i realized it might be one of my friends from dc watching the game. it was, and he told me my hat was crooked, seems the local announcers found me in the bleachers and started talking about how great it was we already had fans in all ports, even in the famed bleachers of wrigley field! then i found out later they zoomed back in to annoint me the "nats fan of the game"! LOL, too freakin' funny!

sunday i did not go to the game but watched most of it, including the xtra innings in the airport on my way home. ryan drese beat carlos zambrano, nats led 2-0 going into 9th but ace closer chad cordero (just named to this yrs all star team) gave up 2 run HR with 2 outs so game went to extra innings tied at 2. to exemplify how rare that is, he was the NL pitcher of the month with 15 saves (which set all time ML record for saves in one month) and a john blutarksy era (that's right, a 0.00 ERA!) in june. so in the 11th, nats scored 2 more and cubs responded in bottom to tie game at 4! in 12th, nats catcher hit HR with 2 outs and that held to complete the sweep with a 5-4 12 inning win where we blew the lead twice and still came back to win. FIND A WAY!!!

monday, 4th of july, nats lost at home to mets 5-2 but no matter. partied with friends beforehand, america's game in america's capitol city, the first 4th of july baseball game in DC in 34 years. almost magical, a sold out crowd of over 44K, other than the outcome, couldn't argue with anything. headed to friend's rooftop deck to watch fireworks far from the couple hundred thousand or so touristas sweating with the (other) oldies on the national mall!

nats are doing so well, i'm considering other beisbol road trips, should probably come to the ATL to watch us kick some fulton county indigenous peoples' butts!