AJC > Sports > Braves > Blog > Archives > 2006 > September > 20
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Can’t wish away RFK just yet
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
There is a reason that your regular Braves Blog writer avoids road trips to Washington when he can.
Braves players wish they could pass on coming to RFK Stadium, too.
“If I got traded here, I’d quit,” Andruw Jones vented after the Braves loss Tuesday night. “I’d give up the money. This place makes you want to not play.”
When the former Montreal Expos moved to Washington, a new stadium was supposed to be ready by 2008 at the latest. Now it looks like 2009.
That means two more seasons of coming to dingy RFK.
The main problem for the media is a press box where views of parts of the field are blocked by bars on the windows. You know something is going on out there, you just don’t know what.
For players, the complaints are more numerous. But at the top is the visiting clubhouse, which is so small that there is barely room for players to turn around.
It is bad enough during the first five months of the season, but expanded rosters make September almost unbearable. Few minor league clubhouses are this bad.
There is a decent-sized lockerroom at RFK and it is right behind the visiting dugout. But it is off-limits because it belongs to soccer’s D.C. United.
The baseball fans around Washington certainly deserve a new stadium. So do the players — the sooner the better.
The Braves finish their road season with four games at Colorado beginning Thursday. David O’Brien — or DOB to his Braves Blog fans — will be back onboard.
Nobody minds at trip to Colorado, no matter how long the season has been.
