The exclusive club made up of Washington Nationals who got lost on their first attempt at driving to RFK Stadium — founded last season by former hitting coach Tom McCraw — gained three new members last week when players Ramon Ortiz, Felix Rodriguez and Matthew LeCroy unintentionally took lengthy driving tours of the city Wednesday afternoon.
Rodriguez said he was preparing to take a cab from his downtown hotel to RFK when Ortiz called him and offered to pick him up. Some 2 1/2 hours later, they pulled into the players’ parking lot at the stadium.
“I told him I appreciated it,” Rodriguez said, “because he showed me the whole city. The whole city.”
“When I left, my gas [tank] was full,” Ortiz said with a laugh. “When I got here, it was half full.”
LeCroy also started from a downtown hotel and got directions from a hotel staffer. He finally realized when he passed Georgetown University that something was probably amiss. His trip, which should have taken 10 minutes, wound up taking almost two hours.
“I saw this cop who was radar-ing cars, so I pulled up and got out and asked him if he could tell me how to get to RFK,” LeCroy said. “He started laughing and said, ‘You’re way far away.’ “