Thoughts on a National Treasure

Last night I went to a baseball game for only the second time in the 8 years that I have been living in tbe US and, as an outsider, I have to say I had a few thoughts on the national pastime.

The day didn’t start well as I stopped off in a bar in Manhattan while waiting my brother-in-law to get off work, the barman was an old friend of mine from another place that I didn’t know had moved.

This barman is really nice guy but has a habit of starting every sentence with the words: “Well, ever since my wife passed away….”. Not to sound insensitive but I’ve known the guy for five years and she’d already been dead for sometime before I met him. After 15 minutes of this you feel like asking this guy if he knows how to make a cocktail called a “Razor blade” or a “Bleeding wrist”. Aww please maaaan… stop!

Anyway, I digress….

We hop the 7-train out to Shea stadium and I am depressed about the ghost of a woman who I never knew and who has been dead for some time. I am also lightly buzzed and I find myself looking around for the ghost of John Rocker’s career in the faces of all those dirty queers and purple-haired-just-released-from-jail immigrant New Yorkers and see only regular people getting ready to enjoy a warm night out at the ballpark.

The sight of the Unisphere in Flushing Meadows Park also cheers me up but after that it is downhill all the way from there.

My problem starts with my ticket, which was free through my brother-in-law who works for one of the corporate sponsors of the Mets, I won’t say which one but let’s just say it rhymes with “shitty wank” and they are going to have half their name inserted in the name of the new baseball stadiuim once it is built.

As a Scotsman with short arms and deep pockets, I have been culturally trained to never turn down free-stuff and this includes tickets for sports that I don’t really understand that well. In saying this however - when you hand me a couple of balloon-like things (that are apparently called “Cheerstix”) with corporate logos on them and ask me to bang them in rhythm to an old Queen song and jump up and down like a performing baboon - at that point I have to draw the line. You have better chance of getting me to eat a jar of garlic sautéed toenail clippings.

"BOOM BOOM BLAT, BOOM BOOM BLAT... We will, we will rock you.... " is coming from all around me as I have my head in my hands wishing I was back in the dead wife bar.

The section of the stadium that we were in was entirely given over to employees of the corporate sponsor, all of them still wearing their work suits and banging their cheerstix together like good little sheep. It was getting more and more depressing so I decided to get up and go for a beer. Another bad idea.

I was not expecting a beer in a ballpark to be cheap by any means but $7.50 for a plastic bottle of Miller-lite?? You’d be as well filling a glass with quarters and drinking them - at least the quarters would taste less metallic. Also, I was getting hungry so I bought some Nathan’s chicken tenders and fries, actually, what I acquired was EXACTLY 3 chicken tenders and 19 fries for the princely sum of $7.25. I know because I counted them with tears streaming down my face.

By now I am starting to see the pattern here: the blue-collar pastime that Americans are so proud of has become blue chip. Back in my seat I am shocked to notice that one of the tickers on the side of the stand is showing stock prices.

I guess that sent me to rock bottom and I catch myself and say, “Fuck this! I am here to watch the game! Let's at least TRY to enjoy myself”

The game gets set in a rhythm and I find myself getting into it like the kind of drunken transcendental mediation that old alcoholics practice when they have perfected the art of staring into space. When a mosquito opens an all-you-can-eat buffet on my arm in the 6th inning I don’t even notice.

Baseball is a strange game to an outsider. I think “game” rather than “sport” is a good way to describe it as it seems to me that the players sit on their arses for most of the time, once every 30 minutes or so they get up and swing a tree branch around a few times then sit down again. If they should happen to hit something they then huff and puff around the baselines like they are being chased by a group of one-legged hippos. When they are playing in defense it is even better! You stand around waiting for the ball to COME TO YOU! Only rarely do you actually have to go to it!

And there you have it, I found it growing on me because when I was in High School I was always the fat kid that was crap at sports. Finally we have a game that a fat kid can be good at. With good hand/eye coordination “a little extra padding” can take you a long way!

God Bless you Fat America!