[Lots of people ending up here from Google searches — 2012 NatsLive info here]
Last night I had one of the best baseball game experiences of my life.
It started with a rookie pitcher who in his first Major League start threw two no-hit innings, then hit a 3-run HR in first first at-bat. On the very first pitch he saw. Which I (sort of) predicted:
Bro: “Oh the pitcher’s up.”
Me: “We haven’t seen him hit, he might be good.”
Bro: “True…”
Me: “If I see a pitcher homer in his first big league at-bat I’m never coming to a game again. I’ll never see anything better than that.”
I guess predicting the future happens to be in our genes. Late in the game, with the Nationals trailing by two runs, my brother said Ryan Zimmerman would hit a walk-off home run. He later amended that to just a walk-off hit.
Ninth inning. Bases loaded. Ryan Zimmerman hits a single. Two runs score. Nationals win.
The game itself would have been high on the list of great experiences, but these tickets we bought back in March just happened to fall on a day when the Nats were having a post-game concert featuring Lifehouse.
That would be Lifehouse, one of my favorite bands. (Yeah yeah, not a universally accepted choice, but I like them, so whatevs.) They’re best known for their hit song “Hanging By A Moment,” which came out when I was a senior in high school:
When I heard they were playing after the game I figured they might do four or five songs, but they ended up playing 12 in all. I was slightly disappointed they didn’t hit my favorite one, but I’m not about to argue about a free concert. One of the big worries about hearing a band you like play in person for the first time is the fear that they will be terrible live, but fortunately I thought Lifehouse was fantastic last night.
Here’s a medley of the show (minus “Nerve Damage” which I failed to record at all):
For people who care about such things, the set list was:
-All In
-Spin (which I used in a montage in my documentary)
-Nerve Damage
-You and Me
-Whatever It Takes
-Wrecking Ball
-Beast of Burden (Rolling Stones cover)
-Falling In
-Hanging By A Moment
-Halfway Gone
-First Time
-Broken
And not only was it a pitcher hitting a home run at his first ever major league at bat, but wasn't the home run into his own bullpen? The end of the game was awesome — I enjoyed his shoulder shrug after the broken bat single, kind of a "Hey, whatever works!"
Yup, the bullpen guys were going nuts! Zimmerman looks like that sometimes even if he hits a game-winning homer…but that team will definitely take whatever works at this point. Also interesting to note that he has something like 14 walk-off hits in his career, and I would guess that someone in our family has witnessed half of them.