April 6: Kegbus

• Arizona ------ 7
• Washington -- 1

All sorts of marketing opportunities crop up around stadium events: street vendors serving hotdogs, hawkers selling non-licensed Nationals caps, and scalpers asking, "Anyone need tickets, anyone selling tickets?" Here's one I haven't seen before around RFK: Kegbus. A full-length yellow schoolbus that picks up bar goers at Eastern Market, shuttles them to the game and then back again afterward, so they can drink throughout the night and get completely hammered without having to hassle with driving. Sponsored by Miller Lite, which I often sell in the stadium to these same people, so I felt a close association with the happy-go-lucky people behind this bit of fun.

I also felt an association because I've seen the KegBus before. In February of 2002 I found myself in an RV with some friends in Punxsutawney, PA to witness the Groundhog Day festivities. The night before the rodent's grand prediction, a worn yellow schoolbus pulled up and parked in the space next to ours. Inside this repurposed vehicle were about 10 young sybarites, girls and guys, drinking and watching pornographic videotapes on a built-in audio-video system. They took a more-the-merrier attitude and promptly invited us aboard, and for the rest of the evening we conducted our Groundhog Day preparations in the bus, and atop its roof.

The trip was a minor disaster for us; we stayed up too late, overslept, and missed the groundhog entirely. But the KegBus crew were hardy enough to pull through, and had already left for Gobbler's Knob by the time we roused. Apparently, that vigor and ironclad constitution has maintained long enough for them to have turned that original bus into a fleet, and to have transformed an extended adolescence into a full-time shuttle business.

As for the game, it was another disappointment. RFK was almost as empty as I've ever seen it. And this was a Friday night -- a weekend game. It's as if the season hasn't even started yet.