A friend passed along a great link today, to Alyssa Milano’s new baseball blog. Alyssa is a Dodgers season ticket holder and an avid baseball fan.She writes, reminiscent of our first post:

But baseball is ours and no matter what our differences are, where we come from, what we do for a living, what ethnicity or religion we are, we share a bond. It’s a bond that is cemented by a red-laced ball and the comfort of hearing it land in a glove. All you need is gLove. And for those nine innings, all our differences are irrelevant. In a time when we are so politically divided and as you have confirmed in your comments, tend to disagree, we unite… 

Milano recently launched a line of MLB clothing for women called Touch, but there doesn’t appear to be any Nationals products yet; maybe soon?

A Big Win!!! For Nationals fans, Saturday’s game against the Mets was all about winning. With an early homer from Dmitri Young in the second inning, the Nats were off to a great start. Homeruns by Church and Snelling in the sixth inning nearly secured a Nationals win. While the Mets could have rallied in the eighth, tne Nats shut the team down. Overall, the Nats were hot. Great hitting, great fielding… While “W” stood for a win for Nats fans this weekend, “W” meant something else to New Yorkers. Here are some of the things Mets fans said to me in my Nationals cap.A friend I attended the game with said, “Your hat is so ugly. You could work for Walgreens. Go Walgreens!”A group of angry Mets fans at a restaurant/bar yelled, “Boo! Boo! W stands for Wussy.”(I was told that is Bronx insult in Queens.)Finally, on Sunday morning the whole city said to me, “W stands for wet!” The Sunday game was a rainout, hence the wet!I’m choosing to ignore the Mets and listen to General Manager Jim Bowden. During spring training in an interview with MASN, Bowden stated, “The W on our hat stands for Washington, World and Winning!”

Looks like our heart and positive attitude paid off Thursday night! I was away on a business trip for what seemed like the world’s longest week, and very disappointed at missing the Nat’s series against the Braves. However my day took a turn for the better, when I found the game on TBS from hotel TV. I tuned in just in time to see the Nat’s take the lead for the first time this season, and watch Chad Cordero close the game. That night, alone in my hotel room was the first time I felt like an honest to goodness baseball fan.

When the girls and I started attending games last summer, it was a way for me to get out of my apartment and learn something new. While exploring a new city, and learning a new job, baseball became my new hobby. I followed and cheered for National’s in 2006, however, it was not until last Thursday night, alone in a hotel room thousands of miles away from home and screaming like a crazy person, that I realized I was a die hard fan. Watching the Chief pitch the end of the game was the perfect way to remind me how much I love the game.

Today is the second game of the Nats three game series with the Mets. With NYC just a few hours from Washington, I have trekked up to the city for the game and I’m hopeful, even if the Post is not. I will be going to the game with many Mets fans, but I plan to bring my Nats Pride.At the beginning of this blog, we, the three girls, said we wanted to chronicle our ever growing love for baseball. For me, the Mets have a special place in my own history with baseball and I would like to share that. I grew up in a small town in the Rocky Mountains without an MLB team in near proximity. In fact, it wasn’t until the mid 1990s when the Rockies moved to Colorado that we had a team close by– and that was still a 10 hour drive. Needless to say, I did not root for a team because I never got the MLB experience as a child. My mother, on the hand, who grew up in the same MLB free environment, could not be more different. As a child in the 1950s and 1960s, she picked the NY Mets to be her team. The Mets were dismal at that time, but my mother says she always roots for the underdog. In the early 60s the Mets were known as the “Loveable Losers,” yet in 1969 they were the World Series Champs. For me, the Nats are just a “loveable,” and while we may not recreate the magical 1969 World Series win the Mets did, I still have hope we will improve– heck, we might even win today!

The Washington Nationals are not off to the best start, (1-6) heading into tonight’s series with Atlanta. But there’s plenty of reasons to stay positive.The Washington Times reports that Ryan Zimmerman is trying to do just that while reflecting on a difficult first week for the Nationals. “At least we know how to play from behind late in the game,” third baseman Ryan Zimmerman joked. “I guess you could look at it that way.”Starting pitcher, Shawn Hill echoed the same sentiment. “[I]t’s a long season, and we just haven’t got off to the hottest start.”Manny Acta and Austin Kearns are optimistic too. The AP is reporting that “Acta smiled when asked about this silver lining: For the next six games, at Atlanta and the New York Mets, the Nationals get to bat first and therefore have a chance to score first for a change.””I laugh at people who press the panic button after the first week,” Kearns said. “Yeah, it hasn’t gone well, we know that. But if we hit the panic button after the first week, come August, I guess, you guys expect to see guys hanging themselves in here. It’s a long year. You can’t hit the panic button. Yeah, we know we have to get better, but you keep playing. That’s all you can do.”We all knew this would be a year of rebuilding — of shaping a young team for brighter days. And there will be brighter days.”So for people to be nervous or people to get uptight — there’s no reason to. … If we can learn this year as a team, I think it’s going to help us, because a lot of us are younger,” Zimmerman recently said.

Despite the weather, a really low-turn out, and another loss, we had a blast at the game on Thursday night. It was our fifth game in seven days, and for us, the end of our first home stretch, wrapping up a busy week full of baseball.

We seemed to continue our streak of strange (lucky) things happening to us at Nats games. This time, a random person gave one of us 4 free tickets in 316. We haven’t yet actually sat in our season ticket seats, but we’re not complaining.

We also each invested in buying a baseball to collect autographs through the summer — and we were quite successful in our first attempt; Matt Chico, Kory Casto and Ryan Wagner all came out to sign. We were prepared for meeting Ryan Wagner — with blowpops and tootsie pops (Note: he prefers blowpops, but took the orange tootsie pop too because he likes orange).

We also were interviewed by DC’s PBS affiliate WETA-TV 26 for a special on Nationals baseball to air later in the summer. We told them why we love baseball so much, who our favorite players are, etc. Oh, they caught the Wagner lollipop exchange too.

The seats were great, but the weather was crazy. The crowd was small and made the game pretty intimate. We were finally able to hear the players’ new batting songs! Z-man taught us all about “ripping a big hole in the bag” to do the sunflower seeds thing.

Not so thrilled by Casto’s strikeouts, glad Austin is waiting past first pitches now, and glad the score was at least close, it was worth braving the cold. We did manage to take a “We’ve Got Heart” sign, but our entertainment-guy-friend kept walking past us.

Assessment of Section 316? Very serious baseball fans; a lot of scorekeepers. Great to be around serious fans!

Well, it’s finally here. Baseball season 2007. This past weekend the Washington Post Magazine ran a story about a woman who set out throughout the 2006 season to become a baseball fan. The author didn’t understand the magic and appeal experienced by so many who love this great game. One blogger recently explained the article in the launch of her new blog, HerSportsPOV.It is in that spirit that we want to share our story — the story of three young women learning to love baseabll in Washington DC, learning to stand by your team through the tough times, and learning as much as we can about America’s pasttime.It took a couple games to catch our interest, but we spent our 2006 summer nights under the stars at RFK, absorbing the energy and magic that is a baseball game, win or lose. We were each drawn to different players, but before any one in particular, we loved our team and the game.Baseball got us out of our cubes and offices. We quickly realized that we could leave our worlds outside of the stadium. For a few hours, we could cheer for our favorites, clap and scream, sing Sweet Caroline, watch children run after foul balls, and appreciate the enormous talent of each of our players.Baseball, we have come to believe, is more than a business. Washington may not be winning as many games as we’d like this year, but baseball is about much more than winning. Baseball is about team and community; the unity Manny Acta keeps speaking of makes it easy to believe in his leadership and direction.Baseball is the American pasttime because it represents some aspect of that great American dream we’ve heard so much about. In a city where ethics and values are questioned regularly, baseball reminds us that a talented little leaguer can one day become a star. Baseball says no matter who you are, or where you were raised, no matter your skin color or race, or even your family’s income, you can become successful. And while personal ethical challenges abound in every industry, there is much good that the Washington Nationals have brought our community. Beltway types too often measure success in power and money. Is success not reaching out to a young child — one who proudly wears your jersey number on his back to home games? What of a player’s dedication to raising money to find a cure to MS?Success is more than power, money and a high batting average. Win or lose, the Nationals are fostering a community in a city full of people from other places, where politics may divide us, but perhaps baseball brings us together. Win or lose, we are going to tell you the story of our transformation into baseball fans. We will keep it light; we are still learning after all. But we are going to stand with these fine young men throughout this season and many more, because — after all — we’ve got heart.