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More on the beer garden proposed near National's Stadium in D.C.

Andrew J. Kline, representing Robert "Bo" Blair, said at a March 25 meeting of the Alcohol Beverage Control Board that his client wants to create a "festival site with amenities" near National's Stadium, but that "beer garden is not our term, I don't know where that came from."

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According to Chief of Staff Charles Allen, Ward 6 councilman and bike commuter Tommy Wells wants to see the Washington Area Bicycle Association triumph in its efforts to offer a free bike valet service on Inauguration Day. "He's always liked the idea of bike valet stations," says Allen, "he supported putting one in at Nationals Stadium."

Of course, such pro-bike-valet-feelings beg the question, if the station goes in, will Wells pedal to Obama? "Tommy would love to ride his bike to the inauguration," says Allen, "he just doesn't know what the situation will be yet." Allen explains that the councilman will have to know more about his schedule and any security concerns before deciding whether to arrive at the inauguration on two wheels.

Another biking enthusiast, Mayor Adrian M. Fenty supports the idea of cycling to the inaug but won't be breaking out his Cannondale to lead by example. "He might not bike to the event," said mayor's office spokesperson Mafara Hobson, "but gives the thumbs up to those who choose to."

*photo courtesy of Washington Area Bicyclist Association

The numbers are in: Nationals Park is the worst-attended new ballpark since the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome opened in Minneapolis in 1982.

Ballpark FAIL!

OK, yes, the final game was rained out, meaning the total paid draw of 2,320,400 is based on only 81 games rather than the scheduled 82. Still, no asterisk is necessary on this dubious feat: If you add the per-game average of 29,005 to the 80-game total, you still can't match Cincinnati's 81-game 2003 mark of 2,355,259.

And trust me, there was no way 29,000 people were showing up to see the Nats play the Marlins on a chilly Thursday night, even without the rain.

Look on the bright side: The Nats didn't lose their 100th game at home, and if you look at the how full the ballparks were in their inaugural years, the Nats narrowly beat out the Reds: Nats Park was 69.2 percent full this year; the slightly larger Great American Ballpark was only 69.1 percent full in 2003.

As for next year? Look for a sharp dropoff. The Reds went from a 29,077 average in Year 1 to a 28,237 average in Year 2 (and a 23,989 average in Year 3). More recently, the Phillies' Citizens Bank Park drew better than 40,000 per game in Year 1 (2004), then only 33,316 in Year 2. Ouch!

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Yesterday, LL posited that Nationals Park is on the cusp of being the worst attended new ballpark in 25 years.

Make that beyond the cusp.

Last night, 20,657 paid to see the Nats beat the Marlins, meaning barely half the stadium's seats were sold. According to the AP game report, that's "a new low in the first season of Nationals Park."

Let's rechug the numbers. Now, to beat the 2003 debut season of Cincinnati's Great American Ballpark, the Nats will have to draw 58,159 over the next two games. That's 29,080 a game! Against the now-playoff-ineligible Marlins! And it's going to rain tomorrow!

Oh, and if you haven't read the Washington Times' takedown of Ted Lerner yet, read it. Now.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

As the Nats begin their final home series of the season tonight, LL felt it might be instructive to have a gander at the current attendance numbers for the inaugural year of Nationals Park.

Compared to the inaugural years of recent major league ballparks, they don't look good.

Right now, according to ESPN.com, the Nats have drawn 2,276,444 paid ticketholders. The closest recent competition is the Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati, which drew 2,355,259 fans for its 2003 inaugural year. That's 29,077 fans per game over an 81-game home schedule.

What are the chances that the Nats break the Reds' mark? It's looking pretty good. To draw 2,355,260, the Nats will have to get 78,816 folks to pay for tickets over the next three days. Against the Marlins. That's 26,272 per game.

During the seven games thus far in the current homestand, the Nats have averaged 26,162, which gives them a fighting chance. But maybe not: Three of those were weekend games, which each attracted over 27,000. If you average the mid-week draws from last week, you get only 25,147.

If the Nats break the Reds' mark of infamy, you have to go all the way back to the 1982 Minnesota Twins (ignoring strike-shortened 1994), and their first year in the infernal Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, to find a more futile new-stadium attendance record. That year, the Twins, losers of 102 games, couldn't even attract a million fans.

Since then, there have been 23 seasons played by teams in new stadiums. Check the table after the jump.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

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If there's one thing we can recognize around here, it's gallows humor, and Chico Harlan snuck in a nice dig at the 100-losses-here-we-come Nats in today's Post. In an item about the final game at Yankee Stadium, Harlan reported that one of the invitees to the celebration was Aaron Boone, the hero of the 2003 ALCS. Alas:

Boone declined: A prior commitment required him to play for the Washington Nationals.

As the Nationals' first season in its new and very expensive ballpark is about to come to a close, Marc Fisher tries to figure out why the team wasn't more of a success in attracting fans.The team is lowering ticket prices next year for some seats, but that may not be enough to create Skins-style buzz.

Who am I kidding? Of course the team will not reach the mania surrounding the Skins. The team has fallen short of what politicians promised would be a windfall for the city. After opening day, the team pretty much stayed off everyone's radar.

Is there a local sports team that has less of an ardent fan base? I only went to one Nats game this year and was shocked at how empty the stadium seemed. And the ones that attended the game did not seem to know what to do, what to cheer, and how to cheer. Even something as basic as the P.A. blasting the call to yell "Charge!" evoked the limpest, most confused response. Oh, and they don't show up on time. [Then again, I only went to one game].

I can count on two fingers the number of friends that are super Nats diehards. That's it. Everyone else I know never talks about the Nats. It's not like the team isn't getting covered. At one point, the Post sports section used to give semi-equal billing to the Nats and the Orioles. Now not so much. It seems like only the Nats make it to the front of the sports section.

Then again, the Nats seem like they only have a marginal presence on sports talk radio. I only listen to Sports Talk 980. And I admit, I only listen in the car to and from assignments. Maybe a reader can set the record straight -- but I never hear the station talk Nats news. Maybe the Nats need a cagey, experienced, and highly opinionated veteran like the Redskins have (Doc, B-Mitch, and of course, Sonny).

Or the Nats need an actual marquee player as Fisher suggests!

*please note how often I use the word "seem" (three times) and "maybe" (several). Editors frown on using "seem" and "maybe" as they are wishy-washy and lame. This is because I don't care at all about the Nats but felt compelled to blog about the team after reading Fisher's unusually brutal assessment of the franchise's future.

*photo by Darrow Montgomery.

Nationals TV viewership is getting worse and worse: Dan Steinberg blogs today on a Sports Business Journal story reporting that a Nats game that aired during Michael Phelps' medal run attracted only 1,600 households, "and a source said that the last half hour of the game was below measurable ratings standards."

That, combined with a horrid squad and only a blip of an attendance boost from a new stadium, can mean only one thing: Manny Acta is due for a Lee Elia-grade blowup. Most baseball fans of a certain age are familiar with the Cubs manager's 1983 rant, which followed a loss before a sparse Wrigley Field crowd. A refresher:

The Cubs made a serious playoff run the following year, and I'm a firm believer in correlation equaling causality in that case. So if Acta has any hope for the Nats in '09, he needs to stop being polite---even in the face of a potential 100-loss season---and bark a little.

Before last night's win in Philadelphia, I heard Ryan Zimmerman on WTOP saying that the problem with the Nationals is the team doesn't "have a killer instinct."

Personally, I had pitching, hitting, fielding, baserunning, coaching, managing, general managing, concession prices, TV commentating and the empty seats behind home plate ranked higher than lack of a killer instinct on my What's Wrong With the Nationals? chart.

But Zimmerman's closer to the situation, so I'll accept his diagnosis.

In any case, if my calculator works, last night's win, which ended a 12-game losing streak, puts the team on a pace to lose 105 games.

That's just one game better than the worst season the expansion Washington Senators ever had: The 1963 squad went 56-106, and -- I'm guessing here -- really lacked a killer instinct.

If Barry Svrlugla's reward for covering the Nats last season was to be the lead reporter on all things Michael Phelps, Chico Harlan deserves a front-row seat at the Second Coming. Since taking over from Svrluga earlier this season, Harlan has ably covered a team that is now re-threatening 121 losses.* Moreover, Harlan has reveled in the kind of gallows humor that comes only with covering a cellar-dwelling, quadruple-A-ish squad. Witness his brutal assessment of reliever Luis Ayala, back when the team's 10-game losing streak was merely a three-game skid: "A reliable setup man in Montreal's and Washington's bullpen since 2003, Ayala this year has become a 6-foot-1 white flag. He appears, the game ends." And Tampa Bay Rays reporters don't get clubhouse-interview gems like this:

Asked after his most recent start -- his fourth consecutive game with at least four earned runs -- to describe his last month, [Tim] Redding settled on a precise assessment:

"Horse[expletive]," he said.

Redding might want to take some interview tips from Teddy, a member of the Nats organization who also loses a lot. In an interview with KidsPost today, he found a way to be more positive than Manny Acta:

Are you ever going to win a race?

[Gives a thumbs up.]

* Update 5:03 p.m.: Using a little something called "basic arithmetic," I realized that the Nats are mathematically eliminated from losing 121 games this season. It's totally on the table for '09, though.

Photo by Flickr user Scott Ableman

It's funny how after spending one night at Legg Mason, I feel like I've endured more than my share of crowd snobbery. Last time I was in attendance, Jimmy Connors was playing. So it's been a while. But some of the crowd behavior was shocking--even in the bleacher seats!

*A few seats down the row from us, two ladies were in non-stop chatter mode during the entire Roddick match. I know Roddick is already a has-been more famous for having dated Mandy Moore and losing to Federer than actual important victories. But these ladies bordered on rude! It didn't help that both had bad facelifts.

*A couple getting huffy that we were in their seats. Nevermind that the first row was completely empty. But by making a big stink, all six of us had to decamp and move up a few rows. This put a real damper on the funtimes as the couple continued to be all gloaty about it. I'm not sure why they chose to make this point considering that they had better options than ousting us. And much of the seating wasn't even numbered anyway. The icing: the couple spent much of the Roddick match playing with their cellphones.

*And finally, the entire stadium's instance on rooting for Roddick---even when the other guy made unforced errors. Isn't it bad sportsmanship to cheer when the other guy whacks a ball into the net?

Despite all this, the Legg Mason crowd was still louder and more into the match than the crowds at National Park. Like Nats fans, they didn't fill up all the seats. But they were better sports fans than the snoozy crowd at our new stadium.

It's sad to see Paul Lo Duca and Felipe Lopez go but hard not to be excited about the Nats' new shortstop (I had trouble finding a photo; think this is him).

Exciting new changes around Nationals Park to come:

• Feeding Dmitri Young Ho Hos till he confesses to stealing your lunch: Probably not illegal
• Front-office hirings: Recent Patrick Henry College grads encouraged to apply
• There will be no appeal if you're sent down to Potomac

The on-going battle over vending operations around Nationals Park took a step toward a resolution this afternoon. A D.C. Superior Court judge ruled against three vendors seeking to halt the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs' current practice of assigning vendors to sites outside the stadium via a lottery.

Judge Brook Hedge denied the vendors' motion for a preliminary injunction against DCRA.

The vendors had serious gripes against the city agency for a number of reasons--some of which were sketched out in the motion, some were not. The city took too long in formulating a system for assigning vendor sites at Nationals Park, they say. After emergency legislation was passed for some 40 possible locations, DCRA awarded only 28 locations--and all the locations were north of M Street. Most of the sites would be lucky to get a handful of Nats fans let alone make any real profit. You can see the 28 locations with this handy map.

Another 14 sites had been awarded in a lottery last week. Those sites were closer to Nationals Park. Another lottery is scheduled for today.

Update 5:19 p.m.: The vendors had argued before the court that DCRA should not have held the lottery--that the D.C. Police Department should be in charge. There also needed to be more back-and-forth over the lottery process itself.

Judge Hedge wrote in her opinion: "Plaintiffs' claims rest on shaky ground. Contrary to plaintiffs' arguments, on April 23, 2008, the Mayor did issue a delegation of authority for the vending site and vending selections at Nationals Park to the Director of the DCRA...The proposed regulations do not require that non-R.F.K. Stadium-vendor-applicants be licensed prior to entry into the lottery." The Judge went on to write that the vendors weren't losing that much money since working the Nationals Park was only a part-time job. And that the vendors' gripes were minor.

Judge Hedge wrote: "It is evident from the legislative history discussed above that this was a fast-moving situation and that, in order to maintain peace and tranquility, given the prior events which led to the vendor moratorium, and that the City Council expected vendor sites to be allocated for the full baseball season, that emergency regulations were necessary..."

If Dan Snyder's expansion of Triple X Radio wasn't intended just to silence his critics, well, what's the point?

Snyder has now bought six radio stations in this market that will bring him the same audience he'd have gotten if he'd just paid for one of those, WTEM-Sportstalk 980. 

But, Snyder now has Andy Pollin and Steve Czaban, hosts of "The Sports Reporters" and the biggest Snyder bashers in local broadcasting over the last couple years, in his afternoon drive slot. And, more to the point, he now has Pollin and Czaban on his payroll. 

Snyder's network debuted its new schedule today. "The Sports Reporters" are in "Best Of" mode.

Speaking of Best Ofs: Snyder axed City Paper's Best Radio Show, "Baseball Roundup,", and its host, Phil Wood, shortly after acquiring WTEM.

There is no baseball show on Snyder's roster. 

On the plus side: It look as if somebody convinced Snyder to move away from giving his stations those bizarre, quasi-pornographic XXX names: WTEM is referred to as "ESPN 980" in Snyder's new press releases.