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ON FRIDAY, D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty paid a visit to the Washington Nationals' new ballpark, currently under construction off of South Capitol Street in Near Southeast. Click here for a full photo slideshow of the new stadium from washingtonpost.com or click here for a live stadium construction cam from Clark Construction.

On Saturday, this writer paid a visit to the Nats' current home at RFK Stadium, photos below, where the team played game two of a three-game series against the Cleveland Indians. (The Nats lost on Saturday, but on Sunday, they beat the Indians, 3-1.)

And tonight at RFK, Democratic and Republican members of Congress will be playing in the 46th annual Roll Call Congressional Baseball Game. Democrats may control Congress, but if current baseball tradition prevails tonight, the Republicans will win.

Photos above, from left, by Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post and Nikki Kahn/The Washington Post; photos below by Kyle Gustafson for Express

It can be easy to forget that RFK Stadium fits into Washington's monumental scheme. It is hard to put the concrete, brutalist structure, built in 1961 as D.C. Stadium, in the same category as the more celebrated monuments, but it sits on the city's east-west axis, in line with the Capitol, Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial. While the aging structure, which seats about 56,000 people, may be derided by baseball fans, it is a beautifully designed structure, sort of. You just have to know exactly where to enjoy it — and hopefully also the game going on down on the field.

It's from the upper deck that the stadium, one of the original "cookie-cutter" stadiums built in the 1960s, can be best appreciated. It might not be the best place to watch the game down on the field, but you're certainly safer from wayward balls and bats traveling into stands. If you take a magnifying glass to the back of your ticket, you can read the following disclaimer:

Batted and thrown balls and bats can enter spectator areas with great force. The risk cannot be avoided it you attend games. If you would like to lessen your risk, the Washington Nationals will exchange your ticket for one in the UPPER DECK OR OTHER REMOTE AREA, or, in the event of a sellout, will refund the ticket at any time before the first pitch is thrown.

So up in the safe seats, you can see the interesting part of RFK's design: the roofline. The canopy that extends over the upper deck undulates like an ocean swell, with upper deck seats rising to meet the curve. In a city made up of square boxes, the structures that break the mold and employ curves are regarded generally as monuments or landmarks.

Walking along the circular interior concourses, you can't help but feel you're shuffling through a dirty parking garage where a cafeteria crew — in this case Aramark — is on lunchtime duty. For such a simple circular walk, RFK's concourses are incredibly complicated places, with ramps going up in all sorts of directions and food and beer vendors clumped together at congested points.

You can't see much of Washington's skyline from RFK, unless you peer out of the gap between the canopy and the upper deck. The design of the stadium forces fans to concentrate on the action down on the field or find ways to admire the architecture that surrounds them. At the new South Capitol Street ballpark, there will be points where baseball fans can look at the Capitol dome and other features on the skyline, like the smokestacks of the Capitol Power Plant. That'll be good. If the Nats' current lackluster season is repeated next year, fans will be looking at everything but the action on the diamond ....

Posted by Michael Grass at 11:23 AM on June 25, 2007
Tagged in Architecture , Free Ride , Nationals , Navy Yard , Near Southeast , News , Sports , Stadium-Armory , Streetscapes , The District , Top Stories