Raising Nats Fans: Spring Break Day 1

This year for spring break, we decided to take a baseball road trip adventure. Over the winter, I gave the girls the choice of a staycation - where we would get a nice hotel in DC and tour the smithsonians and do Nats games, or a baseball road trip. The road trip won hands down. We even picked a hashtag to accompany us. Welcome to our #FieldOfSpringBreakDreams

Our plan:
Philly
NYC
Boston
Niagara Falls
Toronto

Day 1 we drove north to Westchester PA to start with some old timey baseball. Our friend Mr Swampy and his team play baseball that matches the rules of the 1864 era. We've seen them play once before so the girls and I were glad to go back. I learned a little more about the nuances this time. Including the tidbit that 1864 is sort of relished as the sweet spot for highlighting old rules. This was the first year that balls were called in addition to strikes, so walks became a thing, instead of pitching forrrrreverrrrr. And yet the fly ball rule wasn't change until 1865, so you still have the bounce effect. (Swampy may groan at my summation of the rule here... ) The way it works is: if you catch a ball on ONE bounce, it's still an out. But, the tag up (as we see on flies today) only applies if the ball does NOT bounce. One bounce, and runners can advance without tagging. Caught in the air - you still need to tag up. It makes for some interesting base running and also some creative fielding strategy. The other fun rule I learned this time was about batting order. You need to know the player on the batting team who makes the last out of an inning ... because it's the next guy in the lineup who leads off the next inning. Example: if there are runners on 2B (4th in the lineup) and 1B (5th in the lineup) and the guy at bat is 6th in the lineup. There's 1 out. The batter hits a one-bounce to left field (taht's out 2) and then the guy on 2B is thrown out trying to get to 3B (that's the 3rd out). The player who was on 1B would lead off the next inning. Even though the 6th guy in the lineup already hit in this inning. (He'll get to go as the 2nd batter next inning). These rules are fun (although it does add to the challenge of teaching my girls the game, since they're not the same as now).

After we watched a few innings (it was cold and WINDY), we headed for our hotel. The evening agenda was the Nationals-Phillies game at Citizens Bank Park. Our first of 5 games in 9 days. We met up with some wonderful friends, and had terrific seats down the 3B line. 5th row. Too bad the game was not as excellent as the view. Although, we did witness history - the Nationals had their worst inning in franchise history, which yielded a deficit of 12 runs at the end of the first inning. WOOF. The final score was 17-3. Not excellent baseball, friends, but still fun. See below for some photos from Day 1. We walked back to the hotel (hooray for convenience) for a good night of rest and then the start to Day 2.

Day 1 mileage: trip odometer read 0 miles when we pulled out of the garage. 171 miles when we arrived at old timey baseball. 200 miles at Citizens Bank Park.