May 3, 2005 [LINK]

Photos from RFK

Andrew, Cathy, Yanira at RFK My photos from the Nationals game on Saturday night turned out rather mediocre, unfortunately, reflecting the poor lighting conditions. Wait till next time! Note that the RFK Stadium page is a "prototype" of the new format all stadium pages will have shortly, but the comments form linked to it (at the bottom) is still under development.

Pictured with me here are my niece Cathy and her friend Yanira, who had a good time at the ball game even if they didn't understand all of it. More than once they asked me what the score was, which raises a good point: Nearly all scoreboards nowadays are part of multi-functional electronic displays, which show scores one minute and advertising the next. Shouldn't there be one or two old-fashioned mechanical scoreboards to make it easier for less-attentive fans to see who's ahead in the game?


Rising traffic, page sponsorship

As the number of visitors to this site continues to climb, far outpacing my original expectations, the specter of bandwidth limitations rears its ugly head once again. (Some of you will recall that this site used to be hosted by Earthlink, and before that by Apple, but grew too big for its britches.) Yet even on the full-fledged Web server I've used since last June, the number of gigabytes is fast approaching the allowed traffic quota. That is why I've decided to include a "sponsorship box" at the top right corner of each stadium page, as a token of appreciation for those generous folks who put their money where their mouths are. From now on, individuals who contribute $10* to this site may choose any stadium page to "sponsor" for one year. You can have an e-mail or Web site link attached to your name, if you would like. Smaller donations are still welcome, too. ¡Muchas gracias! (* Amount subject to change, [one sponsor per page].)

Bullpen woes, L.A. win

Four Nats relief pitchers are on the disabled list, including Joey Eischen, who broke his arm while diving for a ground ball in Sunday night's game against the Mets. He's expected to be out for 8-12 weeks, and will be sorely missed. See the Nationals Web site. In spite of missing relievers and travel fatigue -- having flown across the continent after the late-night game against the Mets -- the Nationals decisively beat the first-place Dodgers in L.A. last night, 6-2. Pretty darned impressive... I didn't realize that Nats manager Frank Robinson was ejected from the game in the eighth inning on Saturday, after swearing at an umpire in an argument over repairing the mud patches in the infield. The Mets, who had mounted a late comeback, filed a protest of the game. Perhaps the bottom of the eighth and the ninth innings will be played on some other date.