When I bought a place in Arlington, it wasn’t because I felt an obligation to live in this area full time. It’s more that I just like it here. I grew up only three and a half hours from here in Virginia Beach, so I’ll spend a lot of time here in the offseason and it’s a quick drive, or really quick flight, to my hometown.

If I was older and had a family, it would be different. That’s why places such as Florida and Arizona, where they don’t have to worry about snow, are appealing to other players.

But when you’re my age and single, this is the place. I looked for a place in the city and in Alexandria, but Clarendon is a younger area, more my demographic. A lot of my buddies and people that I knew in college who work here live in Arlington.

But just living anywhere in this area is fun. There are things here that you’ll never see anywhere else. New York and Chicago have big buildings, but you can’t drive by the White House there. I like that, especially when my buddies come up. That’s what makes it so appealing and different from anywhere else.

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Other players talk about that, too, especially the new ones. When they get to hang out here it’s a little different. Brian Schneider and I have done a lot of things; we’ve gone to the FBI and we got to go where they teach people how to protect the President. It’s cool stuff that you’d never get to do anywhere else.

I haven’t gotten a chance to go to any museums yet, mainly because I did not live here last offseason. During the season you don’t have time to do too much. But I want to go to the Air & Space Museum and a few guys have gone to the National Archives and liked it — and someone else recommended the Spy Museum. So I plan on doing a lot of that this offseason.

I don’t get recognized too much, but that’s kind of nice. When we go to Atlanta and hang out with some of their players, towns where baseball has been there for a long time, then a lot of players get recognized. It’s getting that way more and more now because the fans have become more knowledgeable and we’re on TV every game now.

It is nice to have the fans recognize you, not because it makes you feel like a big-time player, but because they enjoy watching baseball and they like watching us play.

It’s going to get even better being here. Pretty soon, the city could be one of the best places to play.

As told to The Examiner’s John Keim.

Nats third baseman Ryan Zimmerman is one of baseball’s rising stars and, at 22, the face of the franchise. Now he’ll share his thoughts with The Examiner’s readers each week throughout the baseball season.