D.C. United captain Bobby Boswell often takes Metro from his home in Falls Church to RFK Stadium for practice.
“So when I got to the East Falls Church [station], they said there was something at Stadium-Armory, which is very typical. Whatever, no big deal,” Boswell recounted Tuesday. “I knew when the first train came and it was completely full something was up. A bunch of people got off it because it was so full and we knew there was one behind. And then they said an incident just happened at Rosslyn, it’s an emergency, everyone has to get off [in Arlington]. So then there were like over a thousand people on the platform because they had people waiting and getting off, so I said, ‘I’m out of here.’
“I called my dad; he’s staying at our house. I said, ‘Would you mind driving me?’ He said, ‘What?’ He picked me up. I drove the car.
“He was like, ‘Does this happen a lot?’
“I said, ‘There are a lot of delays, but not like this.’
“He was then blown away by the traffic. I told him you have to be ruthless to get through some of it. That is not his style at all. I told him it’s going to take you forever to get home if you are going to drive like an old man.”
Boswell arrived at the stadium in time.
His father and mother had driven from the Tampa area with Bobby’s boat hooked to their car. The boat is now at a storage yard.
“There was a bullfrog living in it,” Bobby said. “He must’ve come up from Florida. I was spraying the boat down to clean it and he popped out. I thought it was a spider, dude! It was dark, and he was big. I sprayed him to the front. I don’t want to touch him right now. I’ll pick him up later. He was just chillin’. I started washing, I turned back around, and he was gone. He is either in a rod holder, under a seat or he jumped out of the boat. He’ll pop up probably at the worst possible time.”
Or maybe he is stuck on Metro.
After Tuesday’s training session, Boswell left RFK with two gifts.
Teammate Chris Rolfe gave him a framed photo of Boswell, in a Houston uniform, dribbling past a sliding Rolfe, in a Chicago jersey.
“He said it’s probably the only time I’ve ever gotten by him,” Boswell said. “I said, it must have been a playoff game because he was trying.”
Zing.
“Last year we gave [Rolfe] a frame after 50 [career] goals. So it started something. He liked it a lot, so he said he would do something for me. Good dude, man.”
The other gift was from the team: a DCU jersey with “300” on the back, commemorating Boswell’s 300th regular season appearance last weekend. All the players signed it.
Before allowing reporters to photograph him with it, Boswell checked the messages carefully in case someone had left an inappropriate comment.
“And of course, Markus Halsti wrote ‘Whammy!’ ” — a random shout-out to the “Anchorman” movies. “What a guy.”