Final Shark Night

Sadly, Tyler and I went to our last baseball game of the 2011 season...  A "Season in Review" post will happen at the end of the season, providing such useless stats as how many games we saw, the Shark's stats at the games attended, the Nationals win-loss record, and some other sh**k.

But anyway, you will have to wait for that (or delete this blog from your recently viewed websites and pretend we don't exist),  because this post is about last night.

Things weren't looking great leading up to the game.  It rained literally all day long and there was a "soak watch," which apparently meant the ground was so saturated that if the rain came down hard enough, flash floods were inevitable.  While this seemed like something that the Shark would thrive with, it also began to look like these tickets were cursed.  Tyler bought these tickets for half price for a game in April, then when that was rained out, we rescheduled for the Dodgers series a few weeks ago. That game was rained out too, but it turned out third time was a charm because the rain cleared just in time for last night's game.

We got to the park early and went to the Miller Lite Scoreboard Walk, one of our favorite pre-game hangouts. We finally got a chance to try Shake Shack (burgers were great, but a little small) and met longtime Shark supporter @SodaPop6548.  We had a great time chatting about the playoff races and baseball stats until Terry (This is Tyler, who has taken over writing this post. Confusing, I know, but deal with it.) was pulled away to film Fan of the Game (more on that below).

We made our way to our seats near the LF foul pole and got ready for a mostly Shark-less game. Bernadina didn't start, but Stephen Strasburg did.  Unfortunately, he didn't look like his normal self and gave up 3 runs in the first inning.  While the Nats struggled to come back, Terry and I spent the time making friends in the stands.  We sat next to a great family with a cute little girl who put on a Shark hood during the game (you can see her at the end of the video below).  And we ran into our friends and Shark supporters Michelle and Lex. 

This is Michelle's friend and new Shark Fan.

We met a ton of great people who read this blog or follow us on Twitter!  And we made new friends, like Mako Morse's high school friend who we rode the Metro with after the game.  If you said Hi to us last night and you're reading this, leave a comment so we know who you are!


Remember when I won Fan of the Game?  Well, it was finally Terry's turn and he won too!

The Shark finally came out in the bottom of the 9th to pinch hit. We got our whole section cheering and we watched on the edge of our seats as he battled to a full count.  Shark struck out swinging and the Nats lost 7-4.  We just weren't in the mood to watch the post game fireworks.  We charged up Terry's phone and made our way back to outside of the clubhouse/player's parking lot in hopes of talking to The Shark for the final time this season.

The last time we were back there we got to go inside, but this time we were stuck outside of the gate with autograph vultures and kids who would run in front of players cars and even CHASE STRASBURG'S CAR DOWN THE STREET.  I'll be honest, some of these fans were pretty embarrassing.  Although it was cool seeing all of the players leave in their expensive, expensive cars.

Much like last time, Bernadina was one of the last to come out, and as soon as he saw us waiting outside the gate with the "unwashed masses" he waved us back and told the security guard we were cool.  Just like in the movies!

We chatted with him and his entourage, Andrew and Sol, for a good 20 min.  Some of our conversation is confidential, but we can tell you that we talked a lot about how awesome "The Shark" nickname is and made big plans to grow his fan base going into next season.  Bernadina will be in Curacao for the offseason and we all hope he will back with The Nats next year.  Oh, we also all talked about Bill Ladson and how horrible the Speed Racer nickname is.

Every time we have talked with Roger in person this season, he has been nothing but gracious with us.  For a professional sports player to take the time to talk with two random, crazy guys who nicknamed him out of nowhere is really awesome.  We wanted to do something thank him for everything he's done for us, including the autographs, like the one Terry got last night:

Last night we gave Roger Bernadina one of the original Shark hoods.  The yellow-eyed Shark is currently sitting in his locker at Nats Park. He promised to wear in the clubhouse to help spread the Shark nickname with the media and even said he might wear it out on the field before batting practice today or tomorrow!

Just because the season is coming to close, doesn't mean Sharkadina will be going away.  We will be your source for exclusive Roger Bernadina news during the offseason and will continue to bring you information on The Nats, baseball, and actual Sharks.  Don't worry, the photoshops and our unique brand of Shark related humor will continue through the winter! 

More to come.