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Monday, May 18. 2009
Take Me Out to the Ball Game
It figures: the one Padres game I may attend all season turns into seven extra innings. Not only that, we left at the 14th Inning stretch, a full inning and a half before the Padres catcher, Nick Hundley, hit a solo shot to end the game. Damn Padres.The Padres aren’t my “favorite” team. Like most other people in San Diego I’m from “somewhere else.” So, that honor — it’s an honor to be my favorite team — belongs to the Milwaukee Brewers. The Pads have gone through some serious changes in that past couple years; I was scarcely familiar with few of the players, except for Brian Giles who started the game with a second pitch solo homer in the first.
The Brewers, on the other hand, now that’s my team! Corey Hart, Prince Fielder, Bill Hall, Ricky Weeks, J.J. Hardy, Craig Counsell, Jay Suppan (recently acquired from those hated Cardinals), and most recently Trevor Hoffmann, the savingest closer of all time! Recently acquired from the San Diego Padres.
The Padres are on a bit of a streak, but their record is 18-22 as of this moment (Sunday). The Brewers are on a wild streak and at this moment are beating those hated Cardinals 8-2, although a lot can happen in two innings. The Brewers season record: a Central Division leading 22-14, a half game ahead of those hated Chicago Cubs.
It’s early in the season, anything can happen in the next four months, but I’m hanging with my Brewers and root, root, rooting for the Padres because, what the Hell, I live here. Except of course when the Brew Crew comes to town or the Pads head to the Brew City.Baseball, what a game. What a past time! My friend John and I were at Petco Park, the relatively new ballpark named for the pet store giant. We had great seats; field level on the right base side. A few foul balls came in our vicinity, but none close. The fan cam focused on the two hot babes to our right for a few seconds. We focused on them for hours!
It’s an experience, going to a baseball game. When I was little the cheap seats of the bleachers made it easy for us to skip school to see the Brewers first opening day and we could usually get seats throughout the season because as kids we could afford them and parents weren’t so concerned with their teenage boys going to a ballgame alone.
Before that my dad took my older brothers and I to a few Milwaukee Braves games at the now demolished Milwaukee County Stadium. Those are foggy memories though. I was nine when the Braves up and moved to Atlanta, but the memory of watching Warren Spahn pitch and Eddy Matthews and Hank Aaron in the outfield and hitting home runs sticks with me forever.
The one stand out memory from the Brewers: the night Paul Molitor got his 2,000 hit. My sister Elaine was visiting with her two kids and we had decent seats on the right field side. Molitor got a standing ovation of course and for diehard Brewers fans, it was a joyous occasion. Molitor, Robin Yount, Cecil Cooper and the rest had given up a decade-plus of great games including a shot at winning the World Series — against those hated St. Louis Cardinals. This was back when the Brew Crew was in the American League.Diehard Padres fans have memories, 1984 being chief among them. It was the first time the Pads went to the World Series. They lost to the Detroit Tigers in five games, but the season lives on in everyone’s memory, more so than the Pads 1998 appearance when they were swept by the New York Yankees.
Tony Gwynn, one of the greatest hitters of all time, played in both Series for the Padres.
Sitting in the stands at the game, the question arises: why do people attend the game? It really isn’t for the food, which is mundane enough. Most are there for the game, but there are plenty of people who take in America’s pastime because it’s a social event. The action on the field is secondary. These are usually young couples, or groups of young 20-somethings, canoodling with each other in the seats around us.The two hotties to our right were with young men, but the two women were making out with each other shamelessly. That was fun to watch. The couple immediately to our left locked lips and thighs a few times. As you looked around Petco you could see plenty of such action taking place and it’s been like that every time I’ve been to a Padres game.
Ah, to be young again, taking your girlfriend on a date to a Padres game, buying her all the good food and drink and then once a little loose from a few beers, making out and copping a feel! Then of course when the crowd cheers, you stop to see what just happened.
For over 100 years baseball has been the social event of America. Families go, complete with babies that cry through three complete innings. Retired couples go, fans of the Padres, but no doubt fans of a game they’ve shared for 30 or even 40 years or more.
Then there are guys like me who show up now and then because we got free tickets. When my brother Carl was alive we would get the MLB package on cable and get as many as seven games a night. He and I would watch the Brewers, possibly the Yanks and then close the night with the Padres.
As you get older, you appreciate the convenience of watching the games from the comfort of your own couch, especially if you have an active bladder. Plus, you don’t have to spend $4.50 for the hot dog, you can have a couple brats and Polish sausages fired on your own grill, complete with potato chips and your favorite diet beverage.Still, once you get past the traffic and parking, get past the crowd that moves too fast and jostles everyone in its way; overlook the drunken assholes shouting obscenities at the fans of the visiting team, a night of baseball in the park is a nice way to spend an evening.
Just wish it hadn’t gone on for seven extra innings. Damn Padres.
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