”
courtesy of ‘Chris Rief aka Spodie Odie’

California Tortilla is sponsoring the Battle to Break Out at HFStival– local, unsigned bands can upload a track, the top 20 tracks will be voted on by fans, the top 6 will perform for HFStival judges, and the winner of that round will open the main stage of the festival. It’s a pretty great opportunity for the fantastic local music scene.

I wouldn’t have mentioned the sponsor except that every band that uploads a track gets a free burrito for every member of the band, and the top 6 bands get free burritos for every member of the bands for a year. I don’t know about you, but free burritos seems like reason enough to participate, no?

Pierogie Disappointment
Originally uploaded by tbridge

In a performance that could only be considered “air superiority” for the Nationals, Stephen Strasburg made his debut tonight in front of a sellout crowd of 40,315. He would proceed to do things to the Pirates batting order that would be considered illegal in 12 states and 2 territories. He struck out 14, including every one of the Pirates who batted. That’s a club record, surpassing John Patterson in 2006, and Clippard and Capps would add three more for a team record of 17 Ks in one evening.

Throughout his start, Strasburg kept his fastball in such a range that could only be measured in low mach numbers. He cleared 100mph on multiple occasions, and his fastball never dropped below 97. His breaking stuff was so superb that several hitters looked at pitches as if they’d just disappeared between the mound and the plate. We’ll have more in the morning, but suffice it to say: The Hype Is Real. This kid’s the real deal.

Ballpark at Sunset
Originally uploaded by tbridge

The debut of Stephen Strasburg is the single most hyped event in baseball this season, and probably going back further than that. This is as big a day as DC sports has seen since Alex Ovechkin first took the ice in a Capitals sweater. As the fans stream through the centerfield gate, and they’ve been streaming in steadily since 4:30 this afternoon, the final preparations are being made for his first start. Dozens of media camera crews are patrolling warning track around the infield, everyone from George Will to yours truly is here to report on the results of this phenom.

The expectations at this point are so high that anything short of an astounding first outing will be a massive disappointment to the fans for this ballclub. Talking with manager Jim Riggleman before the game, he was clear that the team is excited to have Strasburg, but they’re not resting all of their fortunes on his shoulders. His debut tonight, in front of an oversold home crowd, is the beginning of what the Nationals hope is a new era. It’s rare that a turning point for a club could be so clearly identified, but if Strasburg is what the label says, and from talking with future Hall of Famer John Smoltz this afternoon, he is, then we’re in for the start of something wonderful here.

As with many things in sports, it’s hard to know for anything for sure before the results are written in the books, but all the pieces are coming together to make this an amazing season for the Nationals. Bring it on.

Look for live tweets this evening on @welovedcsports on Twitter

Dan Webb caught footage of the biplane coming in at National and you can see the flip happen. Compare it to the video I have below and you can see what went wrong. Tail-dragger planes have a lot of weight up-front with the engine and prop but need to land with the tail down firmly to avoid this kind of mishap.

At some point in the last few years I’ve stopped going up to Baltimore very often. Now it’s probably been over a year since I was there other than for work. That’s a pity, since I think the name “charm city” is well deserved and there’s a number of nice things to do there.

One of my favorite not-quite-a-getaways, pre-Nationals, was catching the MARC up to Baltimore for $5 and taking the light rail down to Camden Yards. The only downside I found to that plan was the delay between light rail departures; if I was off by a few minutes I could find myself waiting close to a half-hour.

Well, they’ve added a third circulator line that would solve that problem for me and save me the light rail fee at the same time: it runs every 10 minutes and is free. It stops a few blocks east, by the Harbor rather than Camden, but hey – I’ve got the Nats now.

Who wants to go to the Aquarium?

‘Crime Solvers’
courtesy of ‘Marcellina.’

From Frozen Tropics comes the news of a fatal stabbing in Trinidad last night, with the victim being stabbed in front of a vacant bank-owned house on Simms Place in the Trinidad neighborhood.  The homicide marks the first time in twenty months that such a crime has been committed.  Trinidad gets a pretty bad rep for crime, some of it deserved, but they’ve been murder-free for almost two years. Sad to see it slip.

‘Bristol F2 fighter’
courtesy of ‘Rob the moment’

As part of a demonstration, 8 antique bi-planes were to land at Washington National today as part of their tour of the US. Divided into two squadrons of four, the planes were to land, refuel, and then depart around 3:30 this afternoon headed for their next destination.

One of the planes, however, crashlanded on approach today, flipping the plane over on Runway 1. The passengers are okay, but emergency crews are acting at the site, and trying to move the plane now, which has caused the airport to shutdown to all incoming and outgoing flights while they handle the issue.

National has one of the most difficult approaches in the world, due to the short runway and the constrained airspaces, which may have influenced this crash.

The Post has a fascinating blurb on the incident, which includes a notable byline: the article was written by the passenger of the plane that just crashed. Whew. That’s a little intense, no?

‘Fireworks at Nats Park’
courtesy of ‘MudflapDC’

The Nationals were nice enough to present fans with an un-official Strasmas gift last night with the unsurprising selection of Bryce Harper during the first-overall selection in the 2010 First-Year Player MLB Draft.

An important distinction was made with the Nationals selection of 17-year-old hitting powerhouse Harper. He was announced and will enter the Nationals organization as an outfielder as opposed to a catcher, a position has played this season in the Scenic West Athletic Conference.

The coolest part about this kid has to be that he swings lefty, throws righty, and has unbelievable numbers. This season alone, he hit .443 (101-for-228) with 23 doubles, four triples, 31 home runs, 98 RBI, 39 walks and 20 stolen bases in 66 games for College of Southern Nevada. Which, to make this present even better, uses wood-bats.

Harper is prime for success in the big leagues pending solid training at the minor league level, but just know we won’t be seeing him for quite awhile. Remember, he might’ve gotten his GED, but the boy is still only 17.

Now, on to Strasmas Day. Who knows — by the end of all this D.C. might end up being a baseball town! Wouldn’t that be nice?

‘Locals and Tourists #7 (GTWA #8): Washington, DC’
courtesy of ‘Eric Fischer’

Thanks very much to Bill Couch who sent this over, this is a photographic heat map of the geotagged photos of Washington DC on Flickr. This is the just the downtown section, so click through to get the whole view, as it covers the entire metro area. Red dots are tourist shots, while blue dots are from the people that live here. Yellow dots are from people who could go either way.

It’s not surprising to see how monument-centric the tourist population is, but it’s very neat to see where the photo lines drop off in Northeast until you see the big cluster at H Street, etc. Spiff.

‘Photo courtesy Steven Crowley’

It’s take out the trash day on Capitol Hill today.

Traffic was snarled for a bit near Stanton Park this morning when a Waste Management truck dumped a load of trash. The incident happened around 7:30 am, and was first reported by DC Fire and EMS as a trash truck fire. Steven Crowley was kind enough to send in a photo of the spill, which happened at the corner of 6th Street and Maryland Avenue NE.

As of 9:30 this morning, the clean-up effort continued, with 6th Street NE closed between Massachusetts and Maryland Avenues NE. Crews were seen hosing off the street and loading the spilled trash into a Waste Management dumpster.