Baseball makes me batty

Brad is just about the biggest sports fan I know, and I am probably the least interested person in sports that HE knows, and every time we are at a sporting event and I spy a couple with matching jerseys, I ask him what he would do if I were really into sports, and I wanted to go to hockey games with him, with my jersey on, and my face painted, and I was really into the game, rather than how I REALLY am, where I ask an occasional mundane question, or hold my breath, until the KISS CAM comes on, and he always replies, "At first I think I would really like it, and then I think it would get on my nerves." And then I say, "Why?" and then he stands up and yells because someone made a catch or a goal or something, and the conversation always ends there.


So, Brad and I went with my manager, Jen, and her husband, Jeff, to a Cincinnati Reds game last weekend. We sat in the "Diamond seats," which I later learned are the best seats you can sit in, in a stadium.

I learned this two ways, one, by sitting in them, and the other through , my fav, GQ magazine. They have a seating chart in the back of their July issue, that maps out the best seats in a stadium. It is color-coded, and under "our color". They described the season ticket holders as follows:

1. Karma-free titans of oil and banking industries.
2. Men who can only orgasm on yachts.
3. People who actually know several people taken hostage by Somali pirates.

Well, that describes Brad and I to a TEE! The Somali pirate thing, I mean.

So I have a few baseball stories. Not because they were especially exciting games, but because I acted like a huge ass at them. Let me tell you, people, I did not disappoint in the Diamond Seats, either. I may as well have been sitting in the "purple seats" featured in GQ. They are the outfield seats and bleachers which according to them are:

1. Kids and adults who know in their hearts they will catch a foul ball.
2. Men and women who look like Jim Belusi
3. Guys who would let their girlfriend sleep with Dane Cook, no questions asked
4. People who actually like baseball.

My parents used to take us to Reds doubleheaders growing up, and we always sat way up top at Riverfront Stadium. I remember falling asleep alot, and then waking up to swim at the Holidome.
It was one of our only vacations of the summer. Good times.

The next vivid memory I have of baseball, is going with Brad to Reds games in college. We would grill out in some parking structure and bring a cooler of beer and we had a blast. Again, shitty seats, but then who cares? I would just spill my beer on the people in front of me anyway.

Next up, opening day, Colorado Rockies. Brad and I called in sick to work and got hammered for opening day. What I remember most, as usual, is not the game itself, but doing mudslides at a beer garden afterword, and the guy we were with, also Brad, (but we started calling him, Eddie, when he would drink, because his personality would totally change - you know someone like that, I am sure.  Give their drinking alter-ego a nickname.  It's fun! And it humiliates the person you are giving the nickname to.  Unless, of course, they are drinking and they ARE their other personality, and then they think it's funny.)  inviting his girlfriend out with us after she had been in an day-long suicide prevention seminar for work (she was in social work, like me, but she took it much more seriously than I did) and she met us after work, and by that time, we were covered in mud and doing jello shots. She was PISSED OFF, to say the least, and they got in a big fight and she made the other Brad, or Eddie, go home.  I still remember Brad and I laughing at them as she took him by the arm, all covered in mud, and stumbling, through the crowd of people as they exited the beer garden.  We laughed HARD, and then did another jello shot.

What else I remember, is how hung over I was for MY substance abuse board meeting the next day, and how I was literally wanting to puke, as we discussed case after case of clients who were currently not as hung over as I was at that point.

Next memory, seeing the New York Yankees at Yankee stadium on a trip with my pharmaceutical sales class in the city. We took the train from Morristown, New Jersey, where we were training, and arrived three hours early for the game. We decided to stay and party in the Bronx, which was the ONE place my Dad told me not to go, when I went to new York. He watches a lot of Deniro movies, natch.

Of course, I promptly called him to tell him what I was doing from a dirty pay phone, and as he is telling me to "get outta there or you're gonna get killed, especially with that MOUTH of yours," a crackhead that was waiting for the pay phone banged on the door, and I told him I had to go "cause a crackhead is banging on the door, you know, like the ones in "New Jack City", only this one's real!"  I laughed as I hung up. Oh, and I spilled a full beer on the floor during the game, which saturated the Yankee fan's feet and legs in front of me. Don't know who they played to this day.

Which brings us up to date on my most memorable game - the Diamond Seats.


Sat right here. Jen said I was being arty with my beer and peanuts in the foreground. I concur.

Then it got hot, I mean dripping sweat hot, and Jen and I went here for a while.

Then the sun mercifully moved past our seats and we went back out here.

Then we got talking to some healthcare CEO and his adorable family, and she offered us some chocolate covered strawberries she had smuggled from the Diamond Buffet and I did this

Which is an old sorority house prank, Jen and I share, and in my defense, she was all "I know what you're gonna do!" As she clapped, "Do it!" she kept egging me on, "Do it!"

Needless to say, I'll never be invited back.  Anyway, today's advice is to go to a baseball game and do everything but watch the game.  It is my MO and today's stadiums are what they call "fan friendly" which is a term used to describe people like me, who are looking for other things to do during the baseball game while it is going on.  Genius marketing.