The attendance for Monday's game was down-right embarassing. The fact that it was cold has no bearing on advance sales of less than 20,000. It appears that the Nationals have carried with them the Montreal Expos curse of declining attendance and waneing interest, and al this with a brand new park. The players must be so discouraged!

Metro did a wonderful job last night with the number of helpful workers spread out throughout L'Enfant Plaza. However, after the game there was a 15 minute wait for an Orange Line train at L'Enfant. That wasn't too much of an issue last night due to the crowd size however they have to increase the frequency of those Orange Line trains during the summer or that platform is going to be a dangerous place.

I thought the attendance was about what one would expect, given the conflict with the NCAA Tournament, lousy weather affecting the walk-up gate, an opponent not many fans care about, and school still being in session (I know when I was a kid, had we had a baseball team I would not have been taken to games on school nights....didn't like it then, but it's the right rule to follow).

TOMORROW night will be interesting because DC United play Pachuca at RFK, so the Nats Express buses will be relocated to Lot 7 on the NORTH side of RFK. Good day to take the Metro to the ballpark.

Let's take the weather as an opportunity to chill out and stop worrying so much about attendance.

All across Major League Baseball, crowd drop precipitously after the big opener. Cincinnati, for example, had 14,647 on Monday.

And it's not true that the weather has no bearing on advance sales. I avoid buying tickets in advance for night games in April. A Monday night game against the Marlins, opposite the NCAA playoffs, on a crappy night, is guaranteed to leave a lot of empty seats.

Let's see what happens when the weather warms up, more attractive teams come to call and -- most important -- the Nats start playing better ball.

No more Expos talk. This team is here to stay.

Well, there's $611M of Stadium construction for ya. Couldn't even sell out Opening Night in the brand new ball park. Too bad you don't play the Yanks or Sox regularly, there fans fill up stadiums everywhere. Oh well, whaddya expect for a city where half the population is from somewhere else?

Don't worry, when baseball leaves town (for the 3rd time!) in 10 years, there'll be plenty "O" room for y'all at Camden Yards. Dr. G would let ya know to take the MARC-Camden Line up to Baltimore and be sure to purchase a return ticket so you can catch the express bus back to Union Station.

Gee, maybe if the Lerners spent a little money putting a decent team on the field, people would go to the games.

Last night was an embarassment. I was at Camden Yards for EVERY SOLD OUT GAME for the first two years which means I was at EVERY game. Even the second game which was played on a very cold and bitter night. I was there and so were 40,000 other fans. NCAA, who cares? It was Kansas and Memphis. How many of their alumni live in the DC area? My problem is parking. I didn't even think about going to the game even though I could have. I didn't want to park at RFK in case I wanted to leave early and get home at a decent hour. That, and I heard there is a service charge of $11 a ticket. I'm not paying $21 for a $10 ticket so the Nats screwed themselves because of TicketMaster and no parking. Two strikes against you, what a way to start a new park.

That was cold? WTF?

So this is what happened to Camden Yards' Whine and Cheese crowd. Stayed home in DC, to whine about the game-time temperature (c'mon man, dress for the weather, drink some beer and have a hot dog, for cryin out loud) whatever else was on TV, and whoever the home team was playing (you fans are only going to show up if your favorite team is in town, or if the Nats are the entertainment option of last resort??).

Way to inaugurate your new ballpark, DC sports fans! I'm sure many of you will remember how difficult it was to get a seat at Camden Yards for the first few seasons it was open - and those were seasons that the O's weren't very fun to watch (the team was auctioned off to Angelos & Co. after the stadium was opened, and they didn't start winning many games until Pat Gillick arrived in town....)

So here's the team you so desperately wanted, and claimed you so rightfully deserved. And this is how you show America how you support the team? How you show MLB that you deserve to keep the team? How you show Natwar Ghandi and City Hall that the $611 million investment in the stadium is justified? FOR SHAME!!!!!

Oh well, at least all the concern about rush hour congestion seems to be way overblown, and hey, we don't miss ya yapping away on your cell phones at OPCY either.

I must say the various ticketing websites truly rip people off. $4 convience charge, plus a $3.50 order processing fee, plus I have to spend another $2.00 for the right to print the tickets off of my computer? I can understand a small convience charge (a few dollars), but the charges are as expensive as the ticket, something is wrong there.

Someone please explain to me what Baltimoron whining has to do with how the traffic flow worked out. Nobody particularly cares about those clowns to the north.

I just pooed.

Glad to see our neighbors to the north contributing their usual highly intellectual commentary. (Obviously, the post from 5:02 was not me.) "Meridian" addressed the attendance issue perfectly well. All I have to say is that I'd wager the trip from my office to Nationals Park last night was a lot easier than the trip from my office to Camden Yards would have been (and I haven't made that trip since the summer of 2000).