By PETE CONNELL

Major League baseball in the Nation's Capital is played in a $611 million concrete, metal and glass testament to wealth and extravagance that opened this season to near-SRO crowds, few of whom had anything to do with either its construction or its cost.

And, Nationals Stadium is a beaut, enjoyed by an observer and the bride a fortnight ago. Another notch on the belt that has encircled all of the big league stadiums plus several that have fallen to the wrecker's ball or are about to. The tally is somewhere around 36 or 37 now and the quest will hopefully go on since the Yankees, Mets and Twins will open new venues for the '09 season.

All it takes is time, currency, a toleration for shopping malls, restaurant food and the "fun" of 21st century air travel in this land/home of the free/brave.

A brief look back. Most fans of major league baseball know that the District of Columbia lost the Ted Williams-managed Washington Senators after the 1971 season when team owner Bob Short was lured to Texas by the usual sexy menu of radio/TV rights, concession and parking rights, tax concessions and prospective hero status. The town was thus left with the moniker "first in war, first in peace and no longer last in the American League."

Thirty-three years later the curse was reversed and Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos was finally pacified and relented on his claimed territorial rights that banned another team within 50 miles of his Camden Yards palace. The Montreal Expos skedaddled out of Canada and arrived in "DC" in time for the 2005 season where they moved into the nearly-decrepit Robert F. Kennedy Stadium from which the NFL 'Skins" had departed and the DC United soccer team was the only two-legged occupant at the time.

The controversial deal to build the new stadium was force-fed and digested by the mayor, the District Council, the pols who worked there but didn't live there and a lot of baseball-starved citizens in the town and surrounding Virginia and Maryland who ponied up and bought seat licenses and season tickets that, at the time, were the third-highest in the majors.

But, they got themselves a beaut!

The place was erected a short fly ball from the Anacostia River at the end of South Capitol Street near the Navy Yard. It's on the Metro Green Line and surrounded by lots of lots. The field is laid out with the river behind home plate and pointed toward downtown Washington, the National Mall, etc.

You can get a view of the Capitol Building, museums and other monuments if you sit in the nosebleed 300 and 400 upper deck sections. There are 42,000 seats in the place, not a bad one among them, with a couple of niches in the outfield fence similar to the long-gone Griffith Stadium where the Senators played 50 years ago.

Signs all over the place welcome you home, there are red-white-blue buntings hanging everywhere and the team mascots, "Presidents" George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt race in the outfield to the delight of all the Democrats, Republicans, Whigs, Tories, Loyalists et al in attendance. Later you can have your photo taken with them around the concourse, depending on your political persuasion.

Lower box seats four rows behind the visiting team's dugout are one-third the cost of similar seats in Fenway Park and were available at the ticket window two days before the game. You can park for free in the lots surrounding RFK Stadium and ride a free Metro shuttle to the game and you can pick up a free scorecard at the turnstiles. Merchandise in the team store is pricey but you can get caps, visors and some other stuff for $5-$15 at vendors stands on Half Street, the short street between the stadium and the Metro station.

This particular weekend the Colorado Rockies were in town ... that's the defending National League champion Rockies who were blitzed by Boston in the '07 World Series. They're not the same team this year. 'Course, the Red Sox aren't either! But, the main attraction for this fan was the opportunity to see Rhode Islander and St. Raphael Academy 2001 graduate Chris Iannetta wearing the silver, purple and black togs and the starting catcher for the Rockies.

A few short years ago this observer called balls and strikes in two or three Saints games with Iannetta squatting in front of me, smiling, small-talking and obviously having a lot of fun playing for coach Tom Sorrentine's SRA teams that won regularly in the high school top division. He was an All-Stater three straight years, went on to play college ball at North Carolina, was drafted by the Colorado organization and moved steadily up the minor league chain to his major league debut at the tail end of the 2006 season.

A brief pre-game chat to renew acquaintances with him at the wall next to his dugout and a quick photo made the afternoon complete. It undoubtedly was a good one for Chris, too; he walked and was hit by a pitch and scored two runs in Colorado's 7-2 win and a three-game series sweep.

The home-town Nats are awful, as this morning's major league standings will attest. They had just started another losing streak when Colorado came to town and ran it to 12, the longest of the '08 before beating the Phillies. They are on a sure-fire pace to lose 100 games this season and could get close to the 119 losses the Detroit Tigers absorbed in 2002. The roster is filled with names familiar to only the game's stat geeks and team loyalists.

OK, ex-Red and Red Sox'er Wily Mo Pena is a reserve outfielder, Aaron Boone is still trying to preserve the three-generation Boone name in the majors, ex-Yankee Nick Johnson interrupts long stints on the disabled list by playing a game or two and the club boasts one of those great baseball names in Met castoff outfielder Lastings Milledge, who had a pair of doubles but died each time on second because of the inept Triple-A-caliber guys hitting behind him.

Hall of Famer Frank Robinson managed this team when they moved from Canada but soon became disillusioned by ownership, among other issues, who didn't want to pay any kind of money to players who could make a difference. Other teams did, and they have! And the Nats fell behind - way behind.

It was a nice experience in one of America's great cities. Washington ... first in war, first in peace and last in the National League.