| Page 5 of 5 < |
Safe at Home
What some have done with the lifetime pass to Major League Baseball says plenty about the game's healing powers.
(Ricky Carioti - The Washington Post)
TOOLBOX
   Resize
COMMENT
 Discussion Policy
 CLOSE
Comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.
Who's Blogging  |
When asked how many hostages had taken him up on his offer, Rezaian said he thinks 48 or 49 eventually got rugs. However, none of the 10 hostages reached for this story said he took one of Rezaian's carpets.
When he first returned from Iran, Kirtley went to baseball games all the time. He was a Marine drill instructor stationed in San Diego. Sometimes in the evenings, he'd drive over to where the Padres played, flashed the pass and spent the rest of the night sitting in the bleachers.
"I used it to just go down and watch the San Diego Chicken," he said.
But eventually life took over. He became a father and moved to a new, stable life in McLean, working as an information technology consultant. He turned out to be more of a football fan than baseball, but it was hard not to notice the new baseball team that came to Washington last year.
Only Kirtley didn't know how to go about using the card at the Nationals games.
"It took me literally weeks of research," he said. Finally he stumbled across a site for the D.C. Sports and Entertainment Commission. He called and the woman who answered told him to just come to the game. So one night last June, Kirtley brought his two youngest sons to Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium. They showed up early to the main gate only to discover the ticket takers had no idea who he was or why he had this strange pass. Some calls were made and suddenly the woman he had talked to on the phone came racing up shouting, "Mr. Kirtley! Mr. Kirtley!"
She led them inside and brought them to a section of seats 12 rows from the field, just to the third base side of the Nationals' dugout. But the woman didn't leave; instead she walked to the bottom of the section, spoke to a security guard and then waved Kirtley's two boys down, giving them seats in the front row right next to the dugout. About 15 minutes later, the guard came up to Kirtley and said, "You can go down too."
"It was amazing," Kirtley said. "But the thing that was too bad is I don't think my kids knew what a big deal it was. I did know but it was their first game, they didn't know that this didn't normally happen."
After all, how many fathers get a lifetime ticket to baseball?
