April 7: Colder

• Arizona ------ 7
• Washington -- 1

Spring continues to elude us. The area remains shivering in a near-freeze, keeping the crowds away and making this Saturday night game -- normally the biggest draw of the week -- feel more like a minor league game at a county field. We're not the only ones. Games have been postponed in Detroit, and Cleveland, buried in a foot of April snow, suffers the indignity of playing a home series away in Milwaukee. Those vendors have it rough. You can't earn anything at all if the stadium hosts no game.

One cold night is a novelty, but three in a row saps me and makes my hands freeze as they grip can after cold metal can. Numbness set in, and I was pawing at my money in an ineffectual fumble, unable to pull it apart with my useless fingers. The Diamondback players sported quilted, hooded parkas in warmups, and the right fielder (apparently unacclimated to cold in Phoenix) wore a white facewrap that had hecklers shouting, "Hey, look: it's the Invisible Man! Show us your face, Invisible Man!"

It was another low-performance night. For everybody. I'd confer with vendors and compare totals, and too many people were still toting around their first case during the third inning. Even the bags of edibles weren't catching any interest. Bad weather makes people hold tight to their wallets. Two variables lead a Beerman to wonder which is the cause of this series of poor gate turnouts: the painful weather or the awful home team playing in it? What's to become of this season?

"It'll be bad now," said vendor Rich, who is a 15-year vendor. "But you wait: May, June, July. Those are your months right there. People will show. Weather will be good, kids'll be out of school, interns will blow some steam off at the ballpark."

But the team is so bad -- they could lose 100 games this season! Right now, they look like they could even make a run for the '62 Mets record!

"They could lose 100, but they're not the '62 Mets," Rich assured. "They're terrible, but people come out anyway. Think about it: by May, what else is there going to be? The Wizards are out of the playoffs after the first round guaranteed; Hockey's done for the area. So what else do you have?"

Pro soccer -- D.C. United!

"Right, so nothing," said Rich. "What do you do? Go to RFK, even if the team is bad. People will go to a game, just to be in the atmosphere of the ballpark. They're outside, they're in the sun, they're having a beer at a ball game. Baseball's about the season and the experience. By August, then the Redskins are in preseason and it's gotten too hot. But they'll come out during the nice months."