Sports and Silver Spring

Congressmen playing baseball
The 48th Annual Roll Call Congressional Baseball Game was played Wednesday night, with the Democrats winning for the first time since 2000. The game began 100 years ago, and Roll Call has sponsored it for 48 years. It pits Democrats versus Republicans on the baseball diamond and has been held at the new Nationals Park the last two years. The players are mostly members from the House of Representatives, along with a few Senators, and teams practice many mornings a week from about April until game day.

Leading up to the game, we published many stories about the team practices, stars, rivalries, etc. And we put out a program for the game, which was distributed with that day's paper. I was recruited to write one of the program stories. The experience was good but reminded me why I'd rather be an editor.

Despite a bit of rain, the game went well and was fairly eventful (with a final score of 15-10).

Softball follies
My company softball team had a rough loss Thursday. After a few weeks off due to rained-out games, we had a smaller crew than usual and started out pretty weak. We did manage to come back to make the final score less depressing, but we couldn't pull ahead. Our record is now 1-1-1.

The great outdoors
After getting a haircut Saturday morning, I headed to the U.S. National Arboretum. When I had left my house in the morning, it was raining, so I was wearing jeans and a T-shirt. By the time I hit the arboretum it was HOT and very humid. The jeans weren't such a great idea, so I didn't stay as long as I had planned. I did, however, get an idea of how huge the arboretum is. And I checked out the bonsai gardens, herb garden and Capitol columns. The columns were originally part of the east portico of the Capitol (see photo above). That's the area where presidents were inaugurated for years. Later, they redid that side of the Capitol, taking down the east portico and relocating the columns to the arboretum.

More on Silver Spring
I spent Saturday night exploring more of Silver Spring. I ate at Potbelly's (a sandwich shop chain) for the first time. I also saw the movie "The Hangover" (at a matinee price, which made it slightly less than $10 — hooray!). I ended up checking out Quarry House Tavern. I had heard a lot about this dive bar. It was recommended to me as a great Silver Spring bar. However, the one time I walked past it (and almost didn't realize I walked past it), I realized how completely sketchy it looked. From the street, it's basically a piece of aluminum tacked onto the side of a building with stairs leading down. (The first time I saw it, it had no sign. This time, someone had taped a sign above the stairwell. It was a piece of notebook paper written on with a ballpoint pen.) However, once I went inside, I loved it. Their beer menu, or "beericulum vitae," is amazing! And I'm so excited to have that selection available right down the street.