Just when I think I’m out of vintage videos, another one shows up.

In the summer of 1996, I played on a baseball team that hosted a regional tournament for the southeast — think one step before the Little League World Series, just with a different organization.

We were playing state champions from all over the region, including Virginia, South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and two halves of North Carolina.  As the hosts, we automatically got a bid.

Before it all started, a crew from the local public access television station interviewed each team in segments that ended up on a highlight video (which I recently rediscovered).  In our section, it begins with a few moms talking about how they told us to have fun and make “possible lifelong” friends with these kids from all over (which didn’t exactly stick in the pre-Facebook age) and how committing so much of our summer to baseball was fun for the whole family, not a sacrifice.

Then the interviewer turns to the players.  I’m not sure if he talked to more of us that day, but on camera, there are but two.  He begins with Kevin, and as you will see, I’m sitting just to his right with a bevy of facial expressions in reaction to the questions and answers:

Uh oh.  I sense some worry on the face of 12-year-old me.  How will he handle this turn of events?

Nailed it.

You’ll also be happy to know that I can still fit in my jersey.  From 1996.  When I was 12.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to eat something.

The long-running winning combination of me attending Washington Nationals victories before post-game concerts has come to an end.

After wins preceding concerts by Lifehouse and The Wallflowers, the Nats dropped their game before last night’s Third Eye Blind show.  Thankfully, there’s nothing like an immediate concert to wash away the disappointment of defeat.

This was by far the biggest crowd for one of these concerts, all of which could have been held 10 years ago.  Not surprisingly, it was also the loudest.  The lead singer certainly seemed to be enjoying things:

Here’s a taste of the show:

The only letdown — which I never thought of before hearing this idea — is that the bands don’t hang out on the side of the field somewhere during the game and play the intro music for all of the batters.  Credit for that, when baseball decides to be cool and make it happen, goes to former roommate Jon, who went to the game with me.

Third Eye Blind could have taunted a Mets hitter with “How’s it gonna be, when you gooo 0-for-4.”  I would pay massive amounts of to attend a game like that.

If you needed me this weekend, I was at Nationals Park.

In the course of about 29 hours I saw 29 innings of baseball, which included an absolutely wild 11-inning game Friday night and a day/night doubleheader Saturday followed by a post-game Wallflowers concert at the stadium.

The games were the main attraction, especially since I was there with my brother Pat, a diehard fan of the opposing Atlanta Braves.  The Nats were up 9-0 Friday, only to lose 11-10.  They lost again in the first game Saturday, but rebounded with an extremely entertaining performance in the nightcap.  I even saw my favorite player (legally) dive into an ump and knock him down.

The concert was the second in the NatsLive series that I’ve seen.  Last year, Pat and I saw Lifehouse play at the stadium (which, as I described in this post, was awesome).  This time it was more of a blast from the past with The Wallflowers, who sounded good/exactly how I imagine they did in 1997.

 They played a lot of new songs, but did the four that I recognized from back in the day:

In an odd twist of scheduling, Saturday was the first time I’ve ever attended a doubleheader…and I’m going to another one in less than two weeks.  Add in another post-game concert with Third Eye Blind, and August is going to be a good month at Nats Park.