Rachel Levitin: Scouting the perfect seating locations at Nationals Park

The Nats are looking good right now. They're coming off a three-game win streak with Jordan Zimmermann holding his own as team anchor and the under-.500 Chicago Cubs coming into town for a three-game series for Mother's Day weekend. With warmer temperatures on the way, school wrapping up for the kids and summer truly around the corner, now's the time to get to the ballpark ... or at least that's what my friends keep telling me. I'm at the ballpark often enough, catching games and writing them up for We Love DC, but I do that because it's a treasured hobby of mine and I often forget that other folks close to me don't go to the 30-plus games I do per season. A friend of mine recently pinged me for advice about where to sit in the ballpark and that got me thinking about, if given the choice, where I would pick to sit in Nats Park and why Here are a few of my favorite options: Next to the Nats bullpen: This has to be my favorite place to sit, if only for the fact that it's a blast during batting practice. Get to the ballpark early enough and you're bound to catch a fly ball hit off the bat of a major leaguer. Right down the right field line, you've got a great view and you can watch the Nats pitching staff prepare to enter the game as manager Davey Johnson calls up the 'pen. Behind the visitors' dugout: I've never been big on heckling and prefer to watch the game, but it's always cool to see ballplayers from other teams, big-name guys who continue to set records in the sport and create historic milestones as their ballclubs come through town. This is really the closest you can get to baseball's most talented player who wear a uniform for a team outside of D.C. besides sitting in left field by the visitors' bullpen, so that's a perk in and of itself for any fan of the game. Right below the press box: Ah, the view from above. It doesn't get much better. You're seated nearly as high as one can go in Nats Park, just below the press box staring straight out from home plate and beyond to the outfield and scoreboard. It's a clean view where you can sneak a peek at the Capitol dome at the right spot. If you like staring out into the sweet horizon that is Nationals Park, then that's the place to park yourself for the night. Near the Scoreboard Walk: For the complete opposite vantage point of sitting below the press box, sitting in the seats near the Scoreboard Walk allows the opportunity of watching the action as it flies at you from the bats of the players. Whether it's a home run, pop fly, lineout or putout, the action comes at you from home plate, across the diamond and into the outfield sky for your viewing pleasure. Rachel Levitin blogs about the Nationals for We Love DC, and will be sharing her observations about baseball in the nation's capital as part of MASNsports.com's season-long initiative of welcoming guest bloggers to our little corner of cyberspace. All opinions expressed are those of the guest bloggers, who are not employed by MASNsports.com but are just as passionate about their baseball as our roster of writers.