Tag Archives: Giants

Rain Delay For What?

20 Tuesday Jun 2017

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Since MLB is obviously never going to permit a major league team move to Tennessee, I must travel for my fix.  Actually, it’s the Braves who won’t allow it. But, I digress.

So, yeah, I can’t beat the Braves or MLB, so thank the baseball gods I have a working car with a full tank of gas and a heavy right foot to make it go.

Picking a game or series involves both struggle and joy.  Which series? Which pitchers will you get? Weather? Seats? Solo, wife or friend army? Lodging? Parking? Getting time off? Schedules? Who feeds the dog? Does the dog WANT go? How do you get the dog in?

I assume the joy part of the equation will be the game itself.  It damn well better be after all that planning.

You can control some of the planning elements, but you definitely can’t control the weather unless you want to be a Rays fan. That’s one line I shan’t cross.

Otherwise, you just have to roll the dice.  Mostly, for this trip, things lined up well.  The Giants are coming to ATL, so that’s that. One game solo, one game pals. Cueto vs. Dickey. Oh yes. Posey in the lineup both nights. Seats are easy to score on a Monday. All giant (ahem) check marks.  And, for the most part, decent weather is displayed in the 10-day sucker deception chart on weather.com.

I loaded up the vehicle with the correct shirts, podcasts and snacks. One more obligatory ‘why bother checking the weather you are going anyway’ weather check before getting on the road. Of course the forecast was suddenly foreboding- as if it were waiting for me to get on I-75 before it told me the truth.

But. For some reason. I didn’t care. I was going. That was….enough?

And it was like that the whole day. Google Maps goes down right as I pull of I-75. Eh, I’ll find it.  Bad check-in instructions for the Air BnB. Yeah, well, I’m early and this BnB is nicer than the photos.  No good places to eat around the stadium.  Yeah, well, I’m going to baseball. I can get bad food there.

I marched up to the Suntrust ticket booth and bought my ticket old style from a HUMAN BEING who gave me a PAPER ticket.

Me: Are you sure this is a covered section, rain free?

Him: Yep.

Me: Double sure? I really want a dry seat.

Him: Yep.

He was wrong. It was directly in the rain.  And rain it did.  From 6:43 until 7:50, delaying the game.  It rained with vigor, like it wanted the Giants to have the night off. (They took it off anyway.)

I went to the usher in my section to explain that the ticket guy sold me a bill of goods but not a dry seat. Before I could explain the obviously winning arguments that I had over-rehearsed in my head before approaching him- he shut me down.

Michael The Usher: No problem, sit in the Giant’s family section. It’s covered.

Me: Yes. Yes, I will. Thank you, kind usher.

The only moment in the day where I sensed my zen was slipping was just seconds before the moment he hit me on the head with unsuspected generosity.  He saw me tensing up and would have none of it.  This is baseball, son, enjoy your neurotic self.  I bow to to Michael the usher.

When the national anthem kicked in I realized it was one of those rare days when the ‘I will be satisfied once- and only once  X, Y, and Z occur’ switch was not engaged.

And I sat there in dryness, talking it up with the colorful array of gabbing Giants fans, including one senior soul who’s kids drove him from Arkansas just for the game. We watched the beautiful rain come down, studied the amazing ground crew battle and defeat the elements, observed people meandering about like it mattered not where they ended up. Nobody seemed bummed out, even the ones who bought those questionable and nasty A-shaped pretzels.  Even when the Giants had the living daylights beat out of them, we all delighted in the joy of each other’s co-misery.

How can that be? I don’t know, maybe you can’t delay the joy when it’s already here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Not To Do At A Giants Vs. Angels Game

13 Sunday Mar 2016

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Decisions.

Decisions.

What do you do when the squad splits? Do you stay in Scottsdale and gamble on a better roster or do you venture off for Tempe just so you can say you saw Mike Trout?

I saw Mike Trout.

I also saw Brandon Crawford smash a marvelous triple. Sorry, Mike, Brandon was more fun to watch despite your cannon throw from center field.

By all accounts or at least mine, it was a radiant, pleasant day watching the Giants lose to the Angels. Losing is acceptable when it’s Spring Training. The final winning score is whether you had a good time or not- and I did, though I must confess I left during the 7th inning.

I would have stayed for the whole thing but I realized my preference for older, rundown stadiums had suddenly waned right about the time they cued up Take Me Out To The Ballpark. 

 Some brands of charm can’t sustain nine innings of inspection. The Angels fans were gregarious, generally tipsy and quite knowledgeable about the game even though nobody in my row could pronounce Adrelton correctly.

The fans were not the problem. There was just TOO MANY OF THEM….crammed in every shaded and sunny space one could find. The bleacher rows were horribly oversold and cramped unless you happen to be sitting next to a group of Thai ballerinas.  If you wanted a pretzel or had to pee you had to find a way to get dozens of baseball fan statues to slightly move so you could get by.

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Like I mentioned, the fans were fine. Unless. Unless you happen to have brought a mitt to the game and then had an easy foul ball drop right into the mitt and then the ball somehow gets free of its own accord. Then Angels fans turn on you like wild, rabid beasts. There was hellish heckling and sarcastic belittling like you have never heard even at a hockey game.

If you drop a foul at a Giants game you will get, maybe, a chorus of sighs. Awwwwww. They feel for you. Many Bay types even empathize. Some of the more sarcastic fans will offer the tired but well meaning old chestnut: Send him back to AAA!  It always get a few mild laughs.

But lord help if you drop a foul ball at Diablo Stadium. You’ll immediately learn where the name for that stadium originates.

A Short Essay On Pence

11 Friday Mar 2016

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It was a very hot desert afternoon but I walked straight to Scottsdale Stadium from my rental room several blocks away in honor of Hunter Pence.  I didn’t have a scooter, but feet are the next best thing. I was also hoping by committing this act of unity he would be in the lineup.  He wasn’t.

See exhibit A:

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Read it a couple of times, his name still won’t be there.

I grabbed my frosty beverage (lemonade) and quickly found my primo seat in 208. The view was perfect and it was in the shade. To my left was a fairly rabid fan who spent much of the game bidding online for signed Duffy items. I liked him. Everything he said was right.

To my left was a sweet couple from Georgia who had no dog in the fight but were very happy to be there.  The belle noted she was cheering for the ‘blue team’ because she liked that color very, very much. When her boyfriend suggested this was unwise she countered with: This is America.  Diversity and stuff.  

I don’t know what that meant but I grew to like them both quickly as well.  Just as I got my score card adjusted they announced the lineup….. including the name PENCE.

PENCE!?  It was even better that they lied on the lineup. I love a switch surprise.

Seeing him take the field is akin to coming back from Buck Toms Summer Camp and realizing your best pal you made HAD JUST MOVED TO YOUR TOWN AND WAS NOW ATTENDING YOUR JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL.

Pence comforts.  Pence inspires. Pence makes us relax knowing he’s there for us with all his goofy, talent soaked equilibrium.  And he was. And he is. And he will be.

At first I panicked a little when he bobbled a ball and whiffed out on his first at bat. Was he  just setting us up?

At his next at bat, with Posey on second, he approached the plate like a starving caveman at a kale buffet. He was ready.  He watched 3 sliders turn into balls and waited for his pitch. The count was 3-1 after letting the one good slider get by. And then it came.  Fastball. Even faster leaving his bat for the left field berm. Perhaps beyond it. Perhaps it never landed. I know I haven’t.

That, my friends, is why the Hunter Pence bobblehead is the only bobblehead I own.

 

 

Cactus Vs. Grapefruit

11 Friday Mar 2016

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Now that I have ventured into both spring training realms, I must now decide which of these two sites wins.

Being a Giants fan I’m going to go ahead and admit bias and give the whole thing to the Cactus League.  There, that was easy.  Even so, it was still close.

Let’s look at the Pros and Cons.

Grapefruit Pros:

Many of the parks are more charming and have that ‘old style’ feel.  Florida Auto Exchange  in Dunedin, in particular, let’s you live with the players in the dugout. The Astros let you actually throw in the bullpen and will put you in for the last inning, but only if you are left handed and don’t mind wearing jersey #123.

Seafood.

Ocean.

BBQ.

You are close to Tarpon Springs where the Greek eats are unsurpassable.

It’s closer to Knoxville .*

Camp Childers goes there. 

Incredible disc golf courses abound.

Dali Museum in St. Pete.

The Phillie Phanatic can only be found in the Grapefruit League.  All other mascots are posers.

Grapefruit Cons:

The drives are long.  If you want to see the Mets one day and then the Blue Jays the next, you are in for a four hour drive. That’s a lot of Radiolab podcasts.

Orlando. I just don’t like this place. It’s wrong.  The fact that Braves play inside of Disneyworld is beyond comprehension. I like the Braves and their fans but I can’t stomach parking next to 12 tour busses of people about to buy things they probably don’t need.

If it’s above 90 degrees, your winterized body will suffer.

Orlando.  It bears repeating.

There are lots of Yankees fans everywhere. I have noticed them particularly in abundance at Yankees games. But they also take over the Blue Jays stadium, too.

Cactus Pros:

No humidity. (Extra points for this.)

Easy drives between stadiums.

Huevos Rancheros.

The Giants stadium is a perfect mix of old and new.  Not too fancy, not too shabby.

Lots of great AirBnB options.

Desert Botanical Gardens.

You might meet Bill Buckner.

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Cactus Cons:

Some spring training stadiums (I’m looking at you Rockies/Dbacks/Cubs) are nicer than some regular stadiums. This feels wrong, like Orlando feels wrong.

If games sell out, it’s way expensive to get tickets.

You have to admit how congenial Dodgers fans are. Until they start losing. Or winning.

It’s very far from Knoxville.*

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So there you have it.  Cactus League takes the win. But Nate Silver knew that before I even conceived of this detailed analysis.

*If you are not from Knoxville, please ignore this statement or move to Knoxville.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My People! My People!

08 Tuesday Mar 2016

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And so it is done. I finally pushed the ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO PURCHASE BUTTON? that sent me to Arizona for the Cactus League Spring Training games.

Being a Giants fan in Tennessee yields few opportunities to wax baseball with the locals. There are three obsessive fans that I know of in town, and I am one of them.  So, sure, I talk to myself about Giants baseball when nobody with a like mind is around.  It gets the job done and scares the lady at the Kroger checkout line at the same time.

The Giants training camp is in somewhat pleasant Scottsdale and that is where I am currently situated. Arizona in March is enough reason to come but the glorious bonus is that I get to mingle with other self-talkers from all over the country. I got so excited that I scoped out the last leg of my flight to see if there were any others from my tribe of self-talkers. There were, but they appeared to be just random order paranoids so I let them be.  Somebody arguing with a Dell computer is best left alone.

When I got off the plane (I refuse to use the term deplane, because Fantasy Island) there was a whole family of Giants fans in full regalia…hats, hoodies, shirts, key chains, and more.  I looked at them. They looked at me. The instant recognition/acceptance was palpable and reassuring.  But what should I say?

MY PEOPLE! MY PEOPLE!  That’s what I said.

That unsolicited utterance left all but the young boy with the Posey jersey slightly unsettled.

DAD! THAT’S US! HE’S ONE OF US! That’s what he said.

We are forever linked in the Great Link.

Then after an awkward silence, we gave the knowledgeable, if not slightly superior, almost invisible nod to each other and each scuttled on to our next destination.

As I settled in around Scottsdale I noticed many others from the Orange and Black Invasion, a term used by the locals that can be delivered with gratitude or derision, depending on who’s listening.

I never knew what to say before- the knowledgeable nod never seemed quite sufficient. So I tried my new catch phrase on all of them, except delivered with only one go round:  MY PEOPLE! 

Two MY PEOPLE! callouts just seems excessive at Walgreens.

My waitress at U.S. Egg (don’t laugh, it’s a superb and almost affordable breakfast option) was wearing a Diamond Backs shirt.  Oh, what the heck, let’s broaden the family a little bit, after all, it’s all baseball:  MY PEOPLE!

Should I just include all baseball fans?  If so, where does it stop?

I actually opted out at the afore mentioned Walgreens for the Giants fan that was berating the clerk for short changing him on his newspaper when in fact the geezer had forgotten to take his change out of the change shoot. But then, I still felt he was worth a nod, for I have been that dumbass, too, on more than one occasion. My people, indeed.

After a morning of this vocal high five wire act- I realized, perhaps due to vacation mind, just about everybody seemed like My People for some reason.

When the majestic Mingus music blared over the speakers at the Starbucks it was a minor miracle. A minor miracle is still a miracle, though, and I realized some of MY PEOPLE were making playlists decisions in Corporate America.  Perhaps, a major miracle, that.

I grabbed my tea and exited the Moby Dick inspired caffeine house on a good note. The more I walked around outside in the crisp Arizona air I noticed just about everybody was shining in the desert sun once my shades were removed.

Spotting a Dodgers fan at the trolley stop quickly snapped me back to reality.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Free Baseball!

05 Sunday Oct 2014

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If extra innings are free baseball, then last night we got an entirely free extra game when the Giants defeated the Nats after 18 innings of low-scoring play.

Historic? Exhausting? Thrilling? Boring? Annoying? Intriguing? Frustrating? Tiring? Inspiring? Suspenseful? Confusing?

Yes- and every other emotion a human can experience in six hours and 18 minutes, especially given you can run through all the emotions four times each in that amount of time.

It can argued that spending six hours in front of a TV on a beautiful fall night is a waste of time.  Consequently, one can also see it as an opportunity bonanza given how much time can stack up between innings in a double marathon situation.

SO- here are the things I was able to accomplish between each inning.

Between first and second, washed dishes

2/3   Dried dishes

3/4   Walked dog

4/5   Planted jalapeño peppers in my indoor garden

5/6   Thought about helping the less fortunate

6/7   Put up dried dishes

7/8   Did several loads of laundry.  Bought car insurance in less than 30 minutes.

8/9   Prayed to Baseball Gods, tried to talk guests into not leaving because something was about to happen

9/10  Built Pablo Sandoval statue out of childhood play-doh stash, worried he was going to chew his fingers off if the game went much longer

10/11 Put statue in place of old Barry Bonds statue

11/12  Looked up stats on longest games in MLB playoff history and thought: oh, that’s interesting

13/14  Watered jalapeños in the indoor garden, adjusted sun lamp

14/15  Put together fancy snack assortment tray and shared with imaginary guests since real guests left an hour ago

15/16  Bought 2015 calendar online just in case the game lasts for rest of year

16/17  Relived first 15 innings, counted on fingers the number of Nationals ejected from game.  Imaginarily erased Bryce Harper face paint.

17/18  Harvested my jalapeños and made salsa, added to fancy snack tray assortment

When my wife awoke, she was thrilled by the four loads of laundry completed, the clean kitchen, the zingy salsa, and the exhausted dogs in her house. The snack tray assortment, she commented, seemed to be trying to hard. She inches, slowly, every so slowly, to loving baseball for all the wrong reasons-

IMG_6001 but who’s counting?

Post in Pitt

04 Saturday Oct 2014

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On the slow march down Pressley Street to the Pirate’s PNC Park a strange urban squirrel darted in front of me. It was rough looking, thin, and featured something I had yet to see in a squirrel: a strange orange hue.  The orange squirrel was completing its mission when a large, black, imposing SUV zoomed down on him. And even though the street was the domain of the vehicle, the squirrel knew exactly what to do and crossed safely to the other side of Pressely with nary a nick.  I dubbed the squirrel Madison for every brave orange squirrel needs a regal name.

I cut through an alley where I was verbally accosted by some tail gaiting Pirate fans that noticed the SF on my hat. I jousted back, mildly and cautiously, given I was outnumbered 3-1 and ultimately 30,000 to 8. The jousting, as it often does, ended up in the downing of a warmly offered cold tall boy on a warm, Wednesday autumn day. Why does beer taste better during work hours?  You know why.

I eventually met my West Virginia friends Jim and Jenny outside of PNC where we downed additional tall boys and talked, not trash, but baseball- and lots of it. My Pirate loving pals guided me through the street and into the cathedral gates, through the merch shop, and into actual cathedral.  Yes, the rumors are true, PNC is undeniably impressive. I just stood there and looked it, trying to take it all in, knowing it can’t all be taken in.  The river, the bridge, the sun, the 8 other Giants fans, the Manny’s BBQ, the french fries inside of a sandwich.  Everywhere you look is something awe inspiring.

The post season.  The post season.  The post season.

Click your childhood fantasy three times and there you are, standing in the middle of it, 40 years later.  Here’s some good news: the dream loses nothing over time.

But here in the present, the game is over, you know what happened. However, here is a sample of what happened from my vantage point in the men’s room in the bottom of the third. (Inning, not bottom third of the men’s bathroom.)

Sitting in the middle of a row you have to choose your bathroom breaks carefully. I split at the end of third to hit the bathroom one more time, planning not to leave my seat again until the end of the game.

Every single Pirates fanatic I met was superbly friendly and good-natured in their ribbing if they ribbed at all. Every single one, except the guy by urinal three.

“What the hell is HE doing in here? Get the hell out of our bathroom!!”

And he was serious and more importantly, seriously drunk.

I made a joke about long lines and tall boys, hoping to quell is anger, but I was drowned out by the EMPHATIC CHORUS of full bladdered Pirates fans telling him to SHUTHEHELLUPMAN.  He did, after mumbling something about me admitting I love the Pirates. And of course I do, I love baseball, and they are baseball.

The lines were long- so long that when I got back to my seat the Giants were in the process of loading up the bases. The fans in black were THE ABSOLUTE LOUDEST FANS I have ever heard, screaming to the point that I actually felt like a 1972 Who concert would have been quieter.  I wanted earplugs.  It was incredible.

And then…..the… Grand Slam.  Yes, the Grand Slam I predicted in the previous blog entry.  And then, on a dime, it was, crazy, eerily quiet.  I have never seen such a radical switch in energy.  It felt weird to make a scene when everyone around me was about to cry. I heard a Giants fan screaming from two sections away, and that was about it for audible expression, except for the sound of Crawford high fiving the third base coach on his way home. It pretty much stayed that quiet until I got back to my hotel.

Except for the last pitch of the game- when the sizable number of Pirates fans that had not bailed gave their post-season Pirates, who had just gotten beaten to a pulp, a standing ovation.  I clapped for them, too.  And somewhere, a drunk Giant hater was puking up warm tall boys in a parking lot as his depressed friends waited for him to finish so they could get the hell home. A perfect ending to a to perfect evening.

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Surrounded Selfie. Click for the punchline.

The Baseball Gods Are Real

28 Sunday Sep 2014

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Today, on the Book Face, Chapter 1, Day 09/28/14, it was written, by scribe Amy Williams, that the Baseball Gods Are Real. I know some of you non-believers out there have reasons to be skeptical despite Jeter’s walk-off win on his last game in pinstripes. Despite the retiring Paulie Konerko being given his 2005 World Series grand slam ball by the fan that caught it- and that fan went on to catch Konerko’s foul ball in the very same game that night.

You want a classic miracle? What about Babe Ruth promising a sick boy a home run and delivering? And there are million more. Just google BASEBALL GODS GRANT WISH. So now, with devout humility, I offer this humble prayer to the Gods of Baseball, wherever their condo is. And you KNOW they have a kickass condo.

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Ye Gods of Baseball, first off, forgive me for striking out in my last at-bat in Little League and disappointing my teammates and imaginary fans. Sure feels good to finally get that one off my chest.  I come to you now for a favor. As you know, I usually ask nothing, but blindly accept the cruel and beautiful fates you offer on a daily basis 162 days per year.

 But I must confess that I every-so-sincerely do want to go to Pittsburg with the divine frequent flyer miles I have accrued from much necessary travel and from unnecessary Amazon.com purchases. However, to see my beloved Giants play in Pittsburg on Wednesday around 7:10, I sure could use the following before the hotel prices go up: I need the Pirates to lose today. I don’t want them to feel too much pain- so don’t make it gory, just a simple one-run loss will do. I’m not greedy- thanks to you, oh mighty Baseball Gods for you have made it so the Pirates have to use their best starting pitcher TODAY- I thank you for that. For now, he won’t be able to pitch on Wednesday, the Wild Card game in question. Don’t think I don’t see what you did there.

That actually will do it. If that is SIMPLY TOO MUCH, just let the Cards beats the D-backs. Again, one or two runs is plenty. No grand slam heroics.  Save that for Wednesday. Say, for Madbum. It’s been weeks since he’s hit one. Because, as you know dear and very real Baseball Gods, If the Cards win, yes, I will get to see my first post-season Giants game AND also finally get to visit the Andy Warhol museum.  If you can grant this wish, I can push the button that says: USE FREQUENT FLYER MILES FOR TYS>NEWARK>PITT.  

Sure, I could have gone through Chicago saving me two hours, but the NON-BASEBALL Gods have made a big mess up there at O’Hare. OK, that’s it for now. Since I have your attention, I would ask you to lower beer prices at PNC park by one or two dollars, but that’s piling on, I reckon.

 A 10-dollar beer, after all, is a glorious, mysterious, scared thing.  

Baseball Hats at Bonnaroo Tally

17 Tuesday Jun 2014

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Spent the weekend down on the farm and was encouraged by all the fresh looking baseball hats.  I kept score:

Giants: 7  (though I think I saw one guy twice)

Cubs: 4

Yankees and Braves: 2

Indians, Reds, Mets and A’s: 1

I cannot explain this ranking given how far the festival is from California, maybe I’m wired to see SFG’s logos everywhere I go. I wore a Blue Jays shirt one day and got zero comments on it.  I wore an A’s shirt the next day and got several high fives. I will think deeply about this for the next 20 seconds.

California is cool, no argument here.  But…I mean, we all love Canadians, don’t we?

 

A Good Night for Baseball is Most Nights

04 Sunday May 2014

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Pence prepares to be heckled but a drunk kid with a sunburn.

Pence prepares to be heckled by a drunk kid with a sunburn.

Sometimes you just have to.  You just have to drive 4 hours and go see a couple of games starring your supremo teamo, in my case the San Francisco Giants. The natural choice is Turner Field as a weekend trip to Atlanta is about $2,000 cheaper than a weekend jaunt the bay.  Turner Field is a great place to see a game.  Lots of room, it’s rarely cold in the early part of the season, and they don’t even sell it out when they are in a pennant race.  As opposed, to say the Giants, who have sold out every home game since three years before the franchise was created.

I shelled out for a good ticket for the first game of two I will be seeing.  Getting a single ticket can get you pretty close pretty late in the day.  But, as it turns out, you have zero input on who sits
next to you.  It’s a lottery and it doesn’t benefit higher education.

I shuffled down to my seat and waited to see who would show up.  Before the game started they brought out about 20 former players from the Negro League for us to honor.  Oh, that’s cool, one might think. All of us Ken Burns Doc watchers know the story and therefore it’s really fascinating to see some of the teams and players of yore.  And then it hits you.  CRAP, that was NOT that long ago the game we all love and treasure was freaking segregated.  These guys are still out there and they don’t look *that* old.

The got a standing ovation from my section, so we were off to a good start.

Once the game began, it started.  The non-stop, somewhat crude heckling of the Giants by the Braves fans. One guy in particular, let’s call him ‘red head sunburned college kid’- led the charge:

“PENCE, YOU SUCK!”

“PAGAN, SIT DOWN.”

“PABLO, THAT’S A DOUBLE A SWING YOU GOT THERE.”

Ok, that last one was funny and perhaps accurate.

It got louder.  The kids down the row from him joined in.  They were all stone drunk by the third inning, except for the kids, whom I suspect may have been at least trying to figure out a way to get there.

Sometimes this type of thing just crushes my zen.  Why can’t they just let the game be about…oh…not themselves for a few minutes? Seconds? Please?

I was waiting for that magic moment when the drunks have too much to even heckle, and the kids get hoarse and bored.  It came about the 7th inning.  A few homers from the Giants also helped settle the mood.  All the while, I was getting along fabulously with my row-mates, who were funny and much more selective hecklers.  They made each pitch count.

It felt like perfection.  The balance had arrived and the Giants had never been behind so I didn’t have that stress in the mix.  Just watch ’em win and high five the other Giants fans (who treat each other like their favorite lost cousins) on the way to the beer stand.

The Braves didn’t rally.  They sure tried.  But LOUD RED HEAD SUNBURNED COLLEGE DUDE behind me did. He rallied in the bottom of the ninth, basically just screaming “ROMO!” like it was Kirk yelling the name of Khan.  Also, more concerning, he turned on his own team, in particular Dan Uggla.

“I BELIEVE IN YOU DAN. I BELIEVE IN YOU!”

Pause.

“Not really.”

I laughed out loud at that one, why hold back?

Anyway, Romo finished off my favorite second team and the place got very quiet and humble.  The drunk kid, to my astonishment- looked directly at me and said in the most dignified and sincere way possible: Congratulations on your team’s win tonight.

He, after all, had both class and manners- all hidden from sight behind the Bud-Lite bravado. But they were there, just waiting for him to inhale for a second. He loved the game every bit as much as the studious guy behind him with the program glued to his face.

We all had a great time. In our own way.

Sometimes it all meshes. Some nights are perfect for baseball.  Most nights.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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