Above And Beyond: Baseball Edition

Tom attended opening day at RFK Stadium to see the Washington Nationals, but couldn’t get a hot dog. What is baseball without a hot dog? Is that cricket?

At no point during the game were the lines shorter than two innings. When I tried to go back in the 7th, there were hotdogs, but no buns. Who the fuck orders more hotdogs than they order buns? I mean, I get that they come 8 buns to a pack, but 6 dogs to a pack, but the solution here is to use combinatorics, a word which I alone learned on Square One back in the late 1980s, and come up with an equal fucking number of hotdogs and buns. Folks, this is not rocket surgery. It’s fucking concessions. Owners were supposed to fix this situation, not carry it forward. Yet, this opening day, much like the previous two, have brought concession lines that were unacceptably long, and concessions unable to cope with the demand of a full stadium.

Tom forwarded his concerns to Stan Kasten, President of the Nationals. Stan’s response, inside…

(Photo: josh.ev9)


Stan personally responded to Tom’s email and asked him to call his office. When Tom did, Stan’s assistant apologized and offered a “not-insignificant amount of Aramark Gift Certificates.”

The biggest surprise, though, came last Friday night when Mr. Kasten himself came by our seats to apologize in person. That’s the big deal here. It’s not often you see the President of the team in the upper deck visiting people who’ve written him, and that gives me an awful lot of hope for the franchise in the long run, even if this year’s 2-7 start doesn’t.

Now that is service. — CAREY GREENBERG-BERGER

A Followup, and a Thank You [Metroblogging DC]

Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.