Test Driving the NatMobile

August 29, 2009

The NatMobile — in my driveway!

[ Photoset ] Now that’s a proper Nats viewing party! When I first heard of the NatMobile and saw you could request it, I fired off a request to NatMobilerequests@nationals.com and while house calls may not exactly be what they had in mind, we were honored to have the NatMobile show up for Baseball On The Barn as one of its inaugural stops. While Lannan dueled Smoltz effectively last night (but sadly didn’t get a curly w), attendees of the final Baseball On The Barn of this season got a chance to see the Nats’ new marketing vehicle up close. Unveiled just two weeks ago, expect to see this cool truck in local parades and community events around the area. The truck is totally tricked out and even levels itself (well, in theory – my driveway proved challenging)! I was surprised how much setup it requires, but Ray and Oscar are becoming pros at it despite the crutches. There’s nothing quite like a giant Ryan Zimmerman fielding in your driveway, I have to say.

The inside of the truck is set up to give the feel of standing on the field at Nats Park surrounded by full stands under a blue sky complete with flyover. I tried to pick us out in our section, but the people are a little blurry. We received flyers for the Pups In The Park games coming up (oh drat, Saturday is sold out!) and ticket coupons, and in turn the guys got to check out “the barn”. Big plans await the giant Curly W NatMobile. They have plans to add DirecTV to it and allow fans to sit on the “outfield grass” and eat while watching the game on the flat screen TV as well as sell game tickets directly from the truck. It’s already booked for a Memorial Day parade next year and one of our city council members was quite interested in getting it to our Fall Festival coming up.

We had a great crowd — probably our biggest yet, with familiar faces and many first-timers (such as the guys from The Nats Blog, Cheryl and Dave from Nats News Network, Mark Hornbaker from Nationals Pride, and some folks I picked up on Twitter. Ha, that sounds funny!). I had to keep borrowing chairs from the neighbor’s yard. Only mishap was my cloth chair ripped under my behind and I nearly fell through. Luckily, the rain held off the entire night. For the record, my MASN commercial did not air — very disappointing!

Many many thanks to Ray and Oscar and the NatMobile for coming out to our party on a Friday night!

Posted in Washington Nationals