Nationals fans may want to consider eating before heading to Nationals Park for a baseball game, as the stadium placed 24th on Sports Illustrated’s 2017 MLB Ballpark Food Safety Rankings.
Compiling thousands of health inspection records from local health departments, SI ranked 28 major league ballparks based on their most recent inspection (Cleveland’s Progressive Field and Detroit’s Comerica Park were left off the list, as SI’s public records requests went unfulfilled by both cities).
According to SI, inspectors found a total of 49 food safety violations at Nationals Park, including 18 critical violations. Critical violations are “citations linked to the spread of foodborne illnesses or, if an inspector had not been there to correct the violation, could have led to these risk factors.