With BC-BBN--Nationals Home Debut; BC-BBN--Return to DC
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Bruce Goldberg waited a long time for the Washington Nationals' home opener Thursday night at RFK Stadium.
The resident of Silver Spring, Md., who grew up a Washington Senators fan in Long Branch, N.J., proudly wore his old-school Senators cap and jersey to the stadium.
"All my friends growing up were Yankees fans and I thought it was too easy to root for the Yankees," Goldberg said. "So I looked in the paper. I thought if the Yankees were the best team in baseball, I'd root for the worst team. And that was the Washington Senators."
He even traveled to the capital to root for his adopted club. But by the time Goldberg moved to the Washington area in 1974, the Senators were gone _ they left for Texas after the '71 season.
"The real grass _ this looks like a ballpark," he said during batting practice Thursday, taking in the moment with his video camera. "It hasn't changed all that much."
Nor has Goldberg's passion for baseball. Not even his seats _ "nosebleeds" high up in Section 511 _ put a damper on the day for the U.S. Department of Transportation worker.
"All I care about is that I'm here," he said.
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Anybody who needed a reminder that this is a political town just had to make the two-block walk from the Stadium/Armory stop on the Metro to RFK Stadium early in the afternoon.
City workers were still hastily erecting signs outside the station, putting the last dabs of paint on new bus shelters, and a few were busy sweeping litter. Banners from radio stations welcoming the Nationals were hung across fences everywhere, but some of the city workers were slow getting into the spirit. One wore a cap from the NFL's Redskins _ "the real game in town," he said. His co-worker went him one better, wearing the cap of the Dallas Cowboys, Washington's most-hated rival.
Even though passers-by were few at the time, Mark Plotkin had no trouble unloading armloads of free T-shirts reading "Taxation Without Representation." Plotkin works as a political commentator on radio station WTOP and he was pushing what has become a popular issue in Washington _ the District's lack of voting representatives in Congress.
Later, a group called D.C. Vote placed a 10-by-20-foot banner on a chain link fence outside the main entrance to the stadium. It also featured the words "Taxation Without Representation" on a replica of a D.C. license plate.
natsfreak14 
