The rain was falling hard at Pentagon City when I made the decision at 6 p.m. In the car was the ticket to the Nats game, the one where Stephen Strasburg was scheduled to make his return after more than a year of rehab. But it already had rained hard all day, and the radar screen on my smart phone indicated it wasn’t likely to stop. The Nats were playing it coy, with team officials saying a rainout decision wouldn’t be made until game time. I had been through that nonsense on several occasions, hanging around the park forever while the Nats management dawdled in an apparent attempt to pump up concessions sales.

At that hour, I thought the obvious decision would be to call the game before it even started. The second most obvious decision would be to not risk Strasburg on a sloppy field even if the game was played. I looked at the sky and the radar one more time, and decided to go home.

Dumb decision. The rain stopped as I neared the house. Strasburg pitched and threw a shutout for the five innings he was allotted, allowing only two hits, walking no one and striking out four. And the Nats staked him to a 3-0 lead before he left the game. (They then turned into the Nats, eventually losing 7-3.)

Me, I was writing a blog post when I should have been sitting in a seat at Nats Park. Still, from the looks of the stadium on TV, I was far from alone in making that decision. I’ll catch the kid before the year is out.