Battle of the Beltways?

• Orioles: 4
• Nationals: 2
• Sold: 4 cases of beer/40 peanut, Crackerjack

The crowd arrived late, the beer was lukewarm, and the overall atmosphere a disappointment. I'd actually been hoping that this would be a real runaround, packed house affair, but I should have known better. Only the Red Sox will be filling D.C.'s park this year.

Instead the seats were still pretty empty by the time the game started, huge swaths of exposed blue plastic left waiting for asses to fill them. D.C. has always been a late-arriving crowd, particularly on Friday nights. I like to think it's everyone still chained to the desk, busy worker bees trying to clear it for the weekend, but I think it might just be traffic.

It took until about the third or fourth inning for the place to fill out a bit, and then when it did, the O's people came, bringing orange to the blue stadium, and watching their team win. In the upper deck, there was the usual dummy up there, that one guy from the visiting team who had to stand up and address the crowd screaming, "Orioles! O's rule!"

Which is pretty ridiculous, since they're in last place in their division. They rule nothing, and neither do the Nationals; the Nats are the worst team in baseball. So there was nothing for anyone there to really gloat about.

My response: "My terrible team is better than your terrible team!"

But I might have been wrong on that one. O's win, Nats stay bad, and a listless crowd shuffles out at the end of the latest installment of a pretty subdued rivalry.