The Nationals Home Opener
Tickets for the Washington Nationals home opener against the Atlanta Brave on March 30th sold out in just 6 minutes. Partly because Nationals fans want to be there for the first game in the DC’s new $611 million, 41,222-seat Nationals Park stadium.
But if you missed the 6 minute window, there will be 500 seats available for just $5.00 each, on a first-come, first-served basis, on opening day. Tickets to other games are available online and during the month of April, the Nats have 13 home games in their new stadium.
The new stadium, located on South Capitol Street SE, is the replacement to the 56,000 seat, 50 year old RFK stadium. The new ballpark will have state-of-the-art facilities, including a 101 foot outfield high-definition scoreboard (4,500 sq. ft. of viewable area), 
making it one of the largest in the Major League Baseball. Other features include an outfield plaza with shops, a 2-level center field restaurant, the 315-seat President’s Club restaurant located behind home plate, and a children’s area in the outfield.
Final work wart recently completed on the park, including moving and installing home plate, which was moved from RFK stadium.
Behind-the-scenes public tours (for a fee) of the ballpark will be available, and scheduled when the park is not in use. Or you can take a virtual tour.
The stadium will open at 3:30 on the afternoon of the opener, a full 4½ hours before the game starts, allowing fans to tour the new National’s facility. President Bush 
has been invited to throw out the first pitch on Opening Day, but no word yet if he will be in attendance. In 2005, he threw out the Nationals opening game pitch, in their first season in Washington, DC, after moving from Montreal.
Just a block away, the new Navy Yard Metro subway station, will be open in time for Opening Day.
With limited parking at Nationals Park, free parking and free shuttles are offered to and from RFK Stadium on Opening Day.
The Nats are finishing up their spring training season at Space Coast Stadium in Viera, Florida. In 2007, the Nationals had a 73 win, 89 loss season, ending the season in 4th place in the MBL East division.
Nationals Park
1500 South Capitol Street, SE
Washington, DC 20003 (map it)
Images - Flickr - Screech, scoreboard and Soriano by my old Chicago buddy, Scott Ableman (thanks again!)
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3 opinions for The Nationals Home Opener
The Perfect Season…So Far
Mar 31, 2008 at 12:13 pm
[…] Washington Nationals won their season opener last night at their new ballpark, Nationals Park, against the Atlanta Braves, 3 to […]
The Pope’s Visit to DC - April 15-17
Apr 2, 2008 at 7:51 am
[…] Thursday, April 17th, Benedict will celebrate Mass at the new 41,222 seat Washington Nationals Park. The Archdiocese of Washington, responsible for ticket distribution, has distributed tickets […]
Jason
Jul 4, 2008 at 11:42 am
My best team of MLB is The Washington Nationals . This why I always fallow their games especially whenever I have some time. I’m always trying not o miss any of their game and hear about the team’s news. But the tickets get more pricy especially when there are some hot games. But, if we’re really good fans we should try not to be mean when we’re talking about a favourite teams. It’s not only the Nationals tickets that got pricy, but there are other major teams too, so the team needs our support and we should provide as much as we can.
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