especially in years that they aren’t good. Go up to any bartender and ask for them to “put the A’s game on” and they look at you like “excuse, me – who are the A’s?”. Fortunately, after some looking I was able to run across the now out of business Park Bench Pub in Cleveland Park. They’d put any game on for me, on any TV I wanted, and then they’d feed me free beer – probably one of the reasons they are out of business now.

For your purposes – I’d check out the Pour House on Cap Hill (they were always friendly about putting on the A’s and they have the MLB package), CP Bar and Grill in Cleveland Park (somewhat friendly about it depending on how busy they are), and the Ugly Mug in the Eastern Market (near Cap Hill if you don’t know where Eastern Market is yet). Fortunately, I had Park Bench so the above referenced “leads” are not really “battle-tested” – I do think they provide you a good starting point.

As far as the games starting at 10pm and ending at 1am – it takes some adjusting to. At first, you go out to a bar, see a game on TV, look at your watch, see it’s 12pm, the games still on, and wonder aloud why they are showing replays of games. M-Thursday it does provide for rough viewing. However, for weekend viewing, if you aren’t trying to go out and pick up on guys/girls, it makes for a good night out watching a game. You can actually go out and watch a game and make a night of it. On the West Coast you watch the game and then go out. A bit different, but definitely something you’ll get used to.

At the very least, living in DC/East Coast, will make you realize that you shouldn’t be in DC/East Coast and help you come to your senses and move back to CA as soon as possible. All joking aside, DC is a fun city, but nothing beats the Bay.

And I agree with 33SwisherSweet that the pickings are slim. I’m sad to hear that the Park Bench Pub closed… I lived a couple blocks from there and went frequently.

I could add a couple of other places to view West Coast games. For sheer quantity but horrible atmosphere, there is ESPNZone, located near Metro Center. They have enough TVs where you can get anything on. In a similar vein, they were opening up a few sports bars in Bethesda when I was leaving. I have a friend who said Union Jack’s is pretty good. For a much better atmosphere, I also recommend the Pour House, but if you go when there are East Coast sporting events on you may have a hard time getting a TV. I only had a problem once.

Camden is a fantastic place to go to games. They even have standing room only tickets that are directly over the visiting bullpen for cheap (although I think they only sell these if enough tickets have already have been sold). I was there for a Red Sox game (in order to convince a friend to use her car to go to an A’s game I had to go to a bloody Sox game with her) and watched as Scott Sauerbeck wrote his number on a ball and threw it up to a girl half his age. And the best thing about Camden is you can bring your own food in, unless things have changed. There are all sorts of awesome sausage stands outside the stadium, so you don’t get gouged for prices.

for all the advice. I brought my car from CA, so I can bypass using the metro for weekday games. I will definitely be looking into those bars.

I didn’t expect to get much love for being an A’s fan out here. I know that when I go to A’s games here on the East Coast that people are going to give me shit. I hear Boston fans are the worst at that, even beating the Yankees. No love for you enemy…..