Nationals Park

Awesome. Beautiful. That best describes the Washington Nationals new stadium on the banks of the Anacostia River in Washington, D.C. While RFK Stadium had it's own charms, there's really no comparison to Major League Baseball's newest stadium.

It's big, it's open. It has a gazillion food and drink outlets. It has PlayStation, You can bat against a simulated Randy Johnson or the Phillie Phanatic. It has a big bar, The Red Porch and The Red Loft in left-center field. Every seat has a cup holder.

And it has a BIG scoreboard. I mean big, tops in baseball. In high-def. Like Ed said, it's like watching our own TV in our own living room. Only with 40,000 of your friends. Did I mention how big it was?

Metro performed, at least for us perfectly, dropping us off a block from the gates. Even the security for a certain president's visit seemed to go off without a hitch. And Ryan Zimmerman ended an almost perfect Opening Day -- a very, very cold Opening Day -- with a walk-off homer in the bottom of the ninth to beat the Atlanta Braves 3-2.

All in all, there's really not much to dislike -- they do need to do something about the long lines at the concessions, which weren't any better than RFK. I was fourth in line for a hot dog and it took 35 minutes.

And we've already switched our season tickets. We were in section 138, right over the Nats bullpen. The seats were OK, but you couldn't see the scoreboard because of the upper deck and the sun was going to blind us right at gametime. So we moved to section 105, which still gives a perfect view of the rest of the park and the BIG scoreboard.

Our next games probably won't be until Cheryl and Val come for the Cubs series. The Cubs started the season with a tough 4-3, 10-inning loss to the Milwaukee Brewers, but it's still going to be a great season. Especially if Kosuke Fukudome continues to hit. He had a single, double, walk and three-run homer in his debut.

Thank God for baseball.