As a fan of a wide variety of popular (and not-so-popular) music from the 1950s (and sometimes even earlier) up through the present, one of my bucket list projects for years has been to put together a list of my 100 favorite songs of all time. At some point I decided that, once I got around to figuring that out, I could put it out on a blog, for the infinitesimally small proportion of the Internet world that might be interested. So, here we are. While the Top 100 will be a major focus, I also plan to post on a variety of other musical (and occasionally non-musical) topics, in which you may or may not be interested. (If a particular posting doesn’t ring your bell, you’re only a few clicks away from a dancing cat video on YouTube.)

Tuesday, July 23, 2024

July 20, 2024 – Nats 5, Reds 4

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/WAS/WAS202407200.shtml

 

Time: 2:49

Attendance: 32,734

Start Time Weather: 78° F, Wind 4mph out to Leftfield, Cloudy, No Precipitation.

 

For whatever reason, MacKenzie Gore was far from the top of his game on his bobblehead night. His pitches had only a nodding acquaintance with the strike zone. He walked the first two batters he faced, and things didn’t get much better from there, as he got behind almost every hitter. He was fortunate to only allow two Reds to score, but he needed 48 pitches to finally get out of the 1st inning. After needing 19 more pitches to get through the 2nd, allowing another run in the process, Davey decided that the bullpen would take things over from that point on. The Reds continued their scoring in the 3rd, as Jordan Weems served up a one-out homer to Tyler Stephenson.

 

Fortunately, Washington’s bats refused to take the evening off. Harold Ramírez smashed a two-run shot in the bottom of the 1st, and CJ Abrams contributed a run-scoring single in the 4th to cut the deficit to a run.

 

The Nats went on to tie things up after the 7th-inning stretch, as Jacob Young singled, stole second, and scored on a Lane Thomas double. Young came through again an inning later with the game-winning RBI single. Meanwhile, Washington’s bullpen held the Reds scoreless over the final six innings, with Kyle Finnegan retiring the side in order in the top of the 9th for the save.

 

Our pre-game experience was not nearly as positive. Along with dozens of other season-ticket holders, we were standing in the rain outside the first base gate from shortly after 4:00. We had been promised early admission, starting at 4:30, to have a Q&A with Lane Thomas and view batting practice from behind the first base dugout. Given the weather, we figured the batting practice part would be canceled, but there was no communication one way or the other from the Nats. Finally, shortly before 4:30, they sent a security guy out to inform us that, not only would batting practice be canceled, but they would not even be letting us in early, meaning that we’d have to amuse ourselves somehow until the main gate opening an hour later. Apparently enough of us expressed our displeasure that the season ticket reps had a meeting this morning to review the situation and discuss ways to prevent a recurrence in the future.

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