Red Sox

• Red Sox: 11
• Nationals: 3
• Sold: 11 cases of beer/25 peanut, Crackerjack

Finally, a breakout game at Nationals Park. We've had games like this exactly twice since they moved into the new place, both of them the home openers, and the only reason this one was big had nothing to do with the home team, and everything to do with the team they were playing: Boston. Since Boston started becoming really competitive during this decade, they've become the number one team in MLB for away attendance, and we got the benefit of it. Weather was perfect, and I've never served a crowd so ready to drink on a Tuesday night. Between commission and tips, I cracked the 500 dollar mark. And I showed up only at game time, missing out on healthy sales during the six o'clock hour, and wasn't even close to the high sellers in my room. With an energetic crowd and constant sales and a vendor's sense of purpose, it felt like it did back in the days of crappy old RFK.

It's gotta be said that Red Sox fans [Note: photo not mine, stolen from article detailing "Rodent Feces in Red Sox Stadium Food"] have become boorish and smug since the turnaround, though. There was the 8th-grade girl from the school group from Boston earlier this season, who gestured in a rather superior manner to the empty seats on a weeknight and said, "Is it always like this?" In her short life, she's never really known rooting for a bad team that rewards devotion with losses. As in a lot of cases, it was endearing to see loyalty endure failure; less so when it bellows at perpetual success.

In the later innings, in the lower deck's first base side, there was That Guy: the one who's gotta stand up, beer in hand, covered in all the licensed gear, and make a display of his rooting for the guest team. The guy who's sense of primacy is transferred directly from his team winning on the field (plenty could be said of sports fan-dom as a form of modern tribalism, but I'll leave that be for the moment). The guy then turned his attentions to me, for dropping a bag of nuts during the juggling routine.

"Ya dropped it! Yer breaking all the shells when ya do that!"

He might have been right, but I had a point to make. I addressed the crowd.

"You know what Red Sox fans have been resembling more and more in recent years?" I asked. Pause.

"Yankees fans!"

A disapproving ripple passed through the seats, amused but in denial. But there was one guy -- sporting a green Boston 'B' cap -- who silently nodded in acknowledgement. To his credit, a realist.