A Torrid Romance
At the Stadium/Armory Metro stop a few hours before the Nationals play the Mets on the Fourth of July, “Little Christopher” Howland demonstrates how he’s planning to position his glove to catch a foul ball. The 10-year-old from Fairfax, who’s played a little outfield himself, plants his feet and turns the glove up, opening it slightly. “I’ll be getting under the ball, ” he explains. Nearby, 6-year-old Ben, a brother of few words, just grins, opens and shuts his catcher’s mitt and stands behind his mother, Cecilia.
It’s the family’s first Nationals game and it feels like the start of something old. Something Chris Howland Sr. remembers from childhood baseball games with his own father. “It’s okay to root for Philly or the Orioles, but when you have a home team to root for yourself, that’s exciting,” he says. It’s hard to know whether your feet actually touch the Metro platform on a game day in the nation’s capital. It feels just as likely that the energy of fans who’ve waited 34 seasons for baseball to return to the city has conjured up some kind of funky kinetic field to help carry the thousands of Nats fans (44,331 announced attendance for the holiday, the largest crowd of the season) to the game.
More: washingtonpost.com