Several weeks ago, I was able to crash (pun intended) a Nationals season ticketholders meeting hosted by Stan Kasten. Belated thanks go to CrashRiley for the hookup. Some observations from the meeting:
- Kasten reaffirmed the three tenets of his philosophy: player development, customer satisfaction, and community involvement. He explained very pragmatically why these pillars are so important.
- Why so little farm system information? — he blamed the media for not doing it and said they may have to link to blogs from the team’s Web site, which sounds like good news for NFA.
- people asked why the taxi stand did not have taxis
- why the lines are so slow
- will I get similar seats in the ballpark (asked about three times — YES)
- I asked if there would be a Nats store any time soon, and it sounds like the answer is no. He said “off the record” that Angelo$ mentioned to him that the 17th Street Orioles store would be closing. That is public knowledge now.
- Everyone laughed when I used the word “subsidized” to describe that other team.
Also, I got bag of swag. Included in it were:
- A “Take Me Out to the Nachos” t-shirt.
- A notepad
- Ryan Zimmerman dog tag
- A pretty cheap Chinese-made Nats cap
- Probably something else that I forgot.
Oh and I think there is NO chance Soriano resigns here, it conflicts with Kasten’s philosophy. I understand where he is coming from on this one.
Thanks again to CrashRiley for letting me tag along.