So, last night I went to Dodger Stadium with my friend, Jason, where we watched the Dodgers beat the Cubs. I tweeted one word right before leaving work to go to the game: Dodgers! That tweet automatically updated my Facebook page (as will this post), and when I came into work today, I saw the following replies on FB:
- You are totally faking it.
- I became really scared when I read this. Please tell me you’re joking.
Mostly because anyone who’s known me longer than a week knows that organized sports are possibly the only thing in the world I don’t have an opinion on. Ironically though, I love going to ballparks and watching baseball. Football can kiss my ass. Hockey is fun to watch if you’re close enough to the ice to see the goddamn puck. Basketball is great if we’re talking about high school games (I haven’t been to a high school basketball game since I was in high school, so “great” might be the wrong word choice). But watching a baseball game at a ballpark is something I really enjoy and last night was no exception.
We didn’t get to the park until the bottom of the third inning because Dodger Stadium is located right on the border between Los Angeles and Hell. I think we might have spent more time sitting on the 101 / 110 transition than we did in the fucking park, but whatever. So we get to our seats and it’s the top of the fourth, and the score is tied 2-2. Jason and I sit down and for the next two and a half innings, nothing happens. Then, finally, it’s the bottom of the sixth and the Dodgers seem to come back to life a bit and start hitting the goddamn ball. After a few minutes the bases were loaded and then Russell Martin (I say this like I’d heard of him before – I hadn’t) steps up to the plate and hits the ball into the fucking stands for the second grand slam of his career and the first grand slam I’ve ever seen in person. It was fucking awesome.
After that, was the seventh inning stretch, which featured some chick singing America The Beautiful, the standard Take Me Out To The Ball Game song, and some dude on his seventh inning beer loudly telling a story that couldn’t have been interesting to the people who wanted to talk with him, let alone the rest of us. But that’s okay, because that’s what being at the ballpark is all about: You go there, you root for your team, you eat a Dodger Dog and some peanuts, and listen to the loud, drunk guy tell work stories. It’s all part of the tradition.
Oh and I almost forgot the best part of the entire game. Apparently it’s a tradition to play the song Don’t Stop Believing by Journey – the entire fucking song – at some point in the seventh inning. So while they’re playing this song, various cameras are recording various people in the stands, some of whom wound up being shown on the giant ass Jumbotron above left field. The third or fourth guy they showed was this schlub lip syncing along with the song, which on it’s own wouldn’t be enough to make mention of. About ten seconds into his performance, he realized he was on the Jumbotron and he stepped up his game and began incorporating elements of (really bad) mime into his performance as well as air guitar. He was so bad / awesome that whoever was supposed to be calling the camera cuts to other people said fuck it and gave the guy air time for damn near half of the song. The air guitar was so fucking nerdy, the mime so fucking bad, the lip syncing so fucking energetic that the combination of all three wound transcending the ordinary stupidity of it all and became the most wonderful piece of shitty performance art I’ve ever seen and the crowd fucking loved it, as did I. And when the song was almost over, they cut back to the dude, who was still doing his routine as though he’d been on screen the whole time, and as he wrapped up his routine, he bent down and looked into the camera and pointed to the Dodgers logo on his cap and the entire stadium just went fucking apeshit and this guy, who I’ve just now decided to call Dodger Nerd, wound up being the hero of the game.
And I got to see a grand fucking slam! Honestly, the entire night was just kick-ass and was one of the best times I’ve ever had at a baseball game. And Jason paid for the tickets, so if any hot, single ladies wind up reading this, please feel free to [THE REMAINDER OF THIS PARAGRAPH HAS BEEN REDACTED AS IT DEVOLVED INTO CHILDISH AND UNNECESSARY SHENANIGANS — Justice Department Staff].
Exeunt!