Nationals Park

The Boss is coming back to D.C. Just two weeks after playing Washington's Verizon Center , Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band have announced a second date in the nation's capital. This time, they'll be playing an outdoor concert at Nationals Park on Sept. 14. Tickets for the concert go on sale at 10 a.m. Friday, April 27. Prices are $103 for the field, $53-$103 for tickets in other parts of the stadium. Tickets will be available through tickets.com. The Nationals Park show is one of 10 new dates on the "Wrecking Ball" tour announced today.

Few people were walking around downtown Laurel Tuesday evening, but at Main Street Sports Grill, nearly every seat at the bar was taken for happy hour. Since April marks the start of Major League Baseball play, the multiple flat-screen televisions behind the bar were showing ESPN's highlights from games across the nation. However, come 7 p.m., ESPN would be replaced by coverage of two games, one featuring the Baltimore Orioles, and the other the Washington Nationals. Laurel is sandwiched between Baltimore and Washington, about a half-hour drive away from either city, and at Main Street Sports Grill, baseball loyalties were divided between the two teams.

Ginny Dauses considers herself blessed. The campus minister at St. Mary's High School in Annapolis has collected some of the toughest tickets in town: admission to at least two major events during Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Washington this week. She will also chaperone a group attending the pope's rally with young people in Yonkers, N.Y. Along with current and former students, Dauses even plans to stake out the pontiff's public routes in an effort to catch a glimpse of their spiritual leader.

Annapolis officials are considering a plan to remove trash cans from city parks, a strategy they say would save money and could keep public spaces cleaner. Without trash cans, officials said, visitors would take refuse with them or learn to not produce it in the first place. Other parks across the country have adopted such "trash-free" policies, including all Maryland state parks and scores of national parks, which urge visitors to "leave no trace. " In Annapolis, the idea comes amid broader changes that, for the first time, shifted city trash service into private hands to cut costs.

With more than half the seats empty, Game 2 at Nationals Park got off to a bit of a rough start. The gigantic, high-definition scoreboard beyond the outfield at the Washington Nationals' new $611 million stadium was only partially working in the first inning last night, with no ball-strike count and no scoreline. Just a much-much-larger-than-life photo of the batter. The ribbon boards were out completely in the first inning, meaning the spectators there for the beginning of the game against the Florida Marlins - which the Nationals lost, 10-7, and for which the announced paid attendance was 20,487 in the 41,888-capacity stadium - had no way of knowing what the score was. The out-of-town scoreboard on the wall in right-center?

It's close to downtown and open to the sky, and features sweeping views of the city beyond. There's an asymmetrical field with enough nooks and crannies to keep the game interesting - plus a state-of-the-art scoreboard, luxury skyboxes and all the creature comforts fans could want. Oriole Park at Camden Yards in 1992? Yes, but also Nationals Park on the Anacostia riverfront in 2008. Sixteen years after Baltimore broke the mold with its "newfangled, old-fashioned" ballpark, Washington has joined the list of cities that can boast they have a new, baseball-only stadium in a prime urban setting.

WASHINGTON - The Washington Nationals opened the doors this season to a sleek, $611 million stadium - Nationals Park. The owners and the city provided fans with cherry blossoms, enviable sightlines, an expansive plaza beyond the outfield and a kids play area. But one thing management can't do is put runs and hits up on the new the 4,500 square-foot, high-definition scoreboard - the largest in the major leagues. Even after signs of improvement - including sweeping the Cincinnati Reds in a recent home series - the Nationals were last in baseball in batting average (.244)

Whatever the Washington Nationals are paying Ryan Zimmerman, it's not enough. How much is it worth to a franchise to have its new stadium cursed with an Opening Day calamity or blessed with heroics of the Roy Hobbs variety? Washington, one of major league baseball's downtrodden teams, was on the verge Sunday night of seeing its inaugural regular-season game at Nationals Park slip away as a 2-1 lead over the Atlanta Braves became a shaky 2-2 tie on a passed ball in the top of the ninth.

It's usually one of the better non-scientific indicators of how many Orioles fans are in a road ballpark. And during Sunday's national anthem before the Orioles series finale in Washington, the “O” was head-shakingly loud. You could look into the seating bowl of Nationals Park and see nearly as much orange as you could red -- that is up until the eighth inning of the Orioles' 9-3 loss. Most of them were seen filing toward the exits then. This weekend's Battle of the Beltway series lived up to its hype in a lot of ways.

Who would have thought that one of the highlights of the first weekend of interleague play would be - the Orioles and the Nationals? But that's the case. This year's beltway series will feature two teams that are among the best teams in baseball. The Orioles (25-14) will head to Nationals Park this weekend just a half-game behind the Dodgers for the best record in baseball.  And the Nationals (23-15) have been regularly atop the competitive NL East. They're a half-game behind the Braves.

When Jonathan Schuchman arrived at Westminster City Park on July 9, he knew it would be fun. "We got to bring all the balls down and play whatever we wanted to play," said the 12-year-old counselor-in-training for the City of Westminster's Department of Recreation and Parks. "I come all summer," he said. That's music to the ears of Robin Cherney, a program specialist for the city's rec department - though in truth, she wants even more. Cherney said she has the goal to keep kids moving all year long, and to that end, she created the program Rec on the Move, last September.

The City of Westminster's Department of Recreation and Parks is celebrating National Parks and Recreation Month with a number of events, including these listed below. Some are special events, others are simple suggestions to keep children and families active for the summer. The department is also hosting a "Parks of Westminster Scavenger Hunt," which involves visiting various parks in the city for details on the hunt - or on any of the events listed below, go to http://www.westgov.com/recreation/rec_events_july.html or call 410-848-9161.  Monday, July 16 - The Rec on the Move program will be at the Charles Street Tot Lot, 6-7:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 17 - Fly at Kite Day at King Park, Chase Street.

It's usually one of the better non-scientific indicators of how many Orioles fans are in a road ballpark. And during Sunday's national anthem before the Orioles series finale in Washington, the “O” was head-shakingly loud. You could look into the seating bowl of Nationals Park and see nearly as much orange as you could red -- that is up until the eighth inning of the Orioles' 9-3 loss. Most of them were seen filing toward the exits then. This weekend's Battle of the Beltway series lived up to its hype in a lot of ways.

Packed into a sardine can of an interview room with about two dozen reporters - most of them sending details of his outing to his home nation of Taiwan - Orioles rookie left-hander Wei-Yin Chen tried to explain the toughest day of his brief major league career. Through his first seven starts as a big leaguer, the 26-year-old has been close to perfect on paper. He came into Sunday's start against the Washington Nationals with a 4-0 record that included wins over the New York Yankees and Texas Rangers in his past two starts.

In their most recent hot stretch, the Orioles have milked the drama -- with their previous seven wins coming by a margin of three runs or fewer. For much of Saturday's 6-5 victory, the trend looked like it finally would end, with their most consistent starter, Jason Hammel, cruising, and Adam Jones and Nick Markakis each hitting two-run homers against the Washington Nationals to take a 6-0 lead into the fifth. But these surprising, exciting, befuddling Orioles apparently don't do things the easy way. There must be no fun in that after all these years of losing.

Who would have thought that one of the highlights of the first weekend of interleague play would be - the Orioles and the Nationals? But that's the case. This year's beltway series will feature two teams that are among the best teams in baseball. The Orioles (25-14) will head to Nationals Park this weekend just a half-game behind the Dodgers for the best record in baseball.  And the Nationals (23-15) have been regularly atop the competitive NL East. They're a half-game behind the Braves.

Washington has freed the Birds. I say that as a native Baltimorean who's spent nearly a quarter-century toiling in the Potomac fever swamps. The reason why has to do with the opening of Nationals Park in D.C. - an event treated by my neighbors as analogous to the debut of a new and improved Chartres Cathedral. So, how is this a liberation for Baltimore? First of all, Nationals Park should free Baltimoreans from their perennial inferiority complex. The new D.C. facility is simply not in the same league - either figuratively or literally - with Camden Yards.

The Washington Nationals had taken the slow approach with Michael Morse's rehabilitation from a strained right lat muscle, and they felt optimistic the final step would come Monday night. Nine full innings in left field at Single-A Hagerstown would prepare Morse for his return Thursday in the home opener at Nationals Park. "He couldn't do that," manager Davey Johnson said. "That really distresses me. " Morse took himself out of his rehab appearance Monday night after seven innings.

For years, Orioles fans have had an almost primitive response to being outnumbered in their own stadium by thousands of visiting fans who root, root, root for the Red Sox or Yankees. To the home fans, it is as if invaders are threatening the castle. Later this month, the Orioles will host the Yankees and Red Sox. Yankees fans will sport "Jeter" jerseys, and Boston backers will wear "Ortiz" jerseys and chant "Let's go Red Sox!" Feeling protective of their territory, Orioles fans will want to remind them that this is Camden Yards, hon, not Fenway Park.

The Boss is coming back to D.C. Just two weeks after playing Washington's Verizon Center , Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band have announced a second date in the nation's capital. This time, they'll be playing an outdoor concert at Nationals Park on Sept. 14. Tickets for the concert go on sale at 10 a.m. Friday, April 27. Prices are $103 for the field, $53-$103 for tickets in other parts of the stadium. Tickets will be available through tickets.com. The Nationals Park show is one of 10 new dates on the "Wrecking Ball" tour announced today.