Weekend Plans With Nationals Senior VP Frank Gambino

Gambino is a fan of hitting the links in his spare time away from the ballparkFRANK GAMBINO

Longtime Nationals Senior VP/Ballpark Operations FRANK GAMBINO is ready for another summer of baseball in the nation's capital, and this weekend he will help welcome the Dodgers to town with a three-game series starting Friday night. Gambino has been with the club since its inception, thanks to a lasting relationship with the LERNER family. "I worked for the Lerners on their real estate development side for many years," Gambino said. "Then when MLB awarded them the team in ’06, one of my first projects was to work on the ballpark and help with the construction." Gambino has been a steady fixture at Nationals Park ever since. He took THE DAILY  through his approach to a weekend homestand, how he embraces the baseball lifestyle and how he winds down away from the ballpark. 

QUICK PITCH: For the 7:00pm ET Friday game, I’m usually at the ballpark between 8:30-9:00 in the morning. The mornings are filled with plenty of prep -- meeting with different departments within ballpark operations, going over the run of show for the day, any special circumstances we need to take into account. Being in Washington we often have special visitors come to a game that we have to coordinate with their security details. That’s almost a daily occurrence. Then I’ll always sit down with our head groundskeeper to go over the weather, see what’s coming in for the upcoming game/series. Once we determine that, our guest services team and security folks can get a good sense of what we might be expecting.

EXTRA INNINGS: Barring rain delays or extra innings, I’m usually home for the night by about 11:30 and ready to do it all again the next day. The tougher transitions are going from a night game to an afternoon one -- that makes for short hours in terms of sleep. But you get into a rhythm. When you’ve been working in baseball long enough, you understand the lifestyle. You also develop a lot of mutual friendships. I have some friends over at the Dodgers that I'm also hoping to see at some point this weekend. On the personal side, after our day game Sunday wraps up some very close friends of mine are celebrating their 30-year anniversary with a party. I’ll go help them celebrate.

IN THE MEANTIME: We came off a 10-game homestand and then I actually took last week off in the hopes of catching up on real life. I’m not embarrassed to say I got out on the golf course three times. By training I’m an architect, and being in DC there’s a lot of great programs that highlight our historic buildings along with lectures and tours that I really enjoy. I try to get my fill of architecture wherever I am. TV-wise, everything I watch is on DVR for obvious reasons. I’m a fan of “BILLIONS” on Showtime and for sports I like “PARDON THE INTERRUPTION.” Food-wise, since I’m here at the ballpark so much during the summer, we have a concession outlet that features Caribbean jerk chicken, which I’m a big fan of. In terms of other DC venues, I like the staples like Capital Grille and also The Palm. When I want my fill of steak and potatoes that’s generally where I go.