Senator urges Washington baseball club to reopen ticket sales to Phillies fans

Sen. Bob Casey Jr. (D-Pa.) isn't interested in rooting for the home team.

The Pennsylvania native is calling on the Washington Nationals to reverse a new policy under which only fans in the District of Columbia, Virginia and Maryland can buy tickets to games between the Washington Nationals and Philadelphia Phillies.

"I'm calling on the @Nationals to reverse course on a reported plan to block @Phillies fans from buying tickets," Casey tweeted Thursday. "@Phillies have some of the best fans in the world. They shouldn’t be left out in the cold because the Nats want a stronger home field adv."

Phillies fans have made the short trip down I-95 to Nationals Park a summertime ritual Seats are easier to obtain in D.C. than in Philadelphia, which has hosted 204 consecutive regular season sellouts. The Phillies led the league in attendance last year with 3,680,718 fans attending games — almost double the 1,940,478 fans drawn by Washington's franchise.

But Washington fans have bristled at the annual invasion of Philadelphians, with club COO Andrew Feffer urging supporters to help "work together to keep Phillies fans out" in an email last week.

Phillies fans have largely mocked the Nationals for their efforts to rally their fan base, arguing the team is simply driving up sales on the secondary ticket market.

"This may sound wise in theory, but to me it's just a boon for Stubhub. Some enterprising DC resident will purchase a bunch of tickets, put them up on Stubhub and resell them to Phillies fans for a profit," wrote Enrico Campitelli, editor of the Philadelphia sports-centric "700 Level" blog. "And that doesn't even take into account the thousands of displaced Phillies fans who happen to live in and around our nation's capital."

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