Play ball!
Mar. 4th, 2010 10:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marinessSo I headed out to start looking around for a new laptop, only to find myself at a baseball game instead.
Hey, look. That sort of thing can happen to anybody.
Anyway, we had six seats at the Atlanta Braves/Pittsburgh Pirates spring training game at Disney's ESPN Wide World of Sports for all of two of us, which felt slightly like overkill.
Despite innumerable trips to Disney, this was my first trip to Wide World of Sports, which I must say did not exactly live up to the theme park standards on this particular visit, given that the entire place is undergoing massive renovations and planning for a small marathon this upcoming weekend, forcing people wanting valet parking (not us) to drive along an exciting dirt road that was rather less smooth than dirt roads tend to be, and people with preferred parking (us) to see a truly spectacular collection of Porta Potties. If you like that sort of thing, and don't tell me if you do, that was absolutely the place to fulfill your Porta Potty fetish. We ended up parking on one of the football fields, in a place that was not exactly marked for disabled parking, and went over some intriguing terrain to get to Wide World of Sports. For once I was exceedingly grateful that we'd selected the wheelchair and not the scooter. We then went through what I think are usually basketball courts but were now filled with sparkling Disney Princess and Lady Foot Locker supplies, up an elevator, and finally into a nice café, and then, finally, into the more official Wide World of Sports entrance. It was precisely the opposite of my general Disney feeling of wow, look at the parking lots.
We did, however, have excellent seats – right behind home plate. We could not possibly have chosen two teams that I am more neutral about, so naturally I cheered for the Pirates, because, well, pirates. (Equally naturally I shall spare you any tension – since I was cheering for the Pirates, naturally they lost.) This decision was to have a more momentous impact than I'd anticipated. But I anticipate.
It'd been years since I'd gone to Orioles spring training games with the Venezuelan down in Fort Lauderdale. I'd forgotten just how relaxed and laid back they are, even by baseball standards. (Which are not exactly high on the tension scale.) And I'd also forgotten just how much is lost when watching baseball on the small screen – most of the point, really, even if you have bought a little box of Cracker Jack to munch on at home.
(Incidentally, we did not get ANY Cracker Jack because some people felt that popcorn fulfilled that traditional need, which no. I was also amused to see the added Disney touch of menus placed by each seat featuring overpriced food that can be ordered and delivered to your seat, and even more amused to watch pretty much everyone selecting hot dogs and beer instead. It's baseball.)
Specifically, what you miss are the spectators, including:
To my left, a highly excitable Atlanta Braves fan with a remarkably booming voice and a penchant for colorful language and surprisingly creative metaphors that had at least one person saying, "Daddy will explain that later," followed somewhat later by, "Daddy really doesn't know. No, Daddy's clueless." He broke the genius of Daddy.
Directly above me, a former player for the minor leagues, now playing softball, and his two friends, one of whom runs a fairly successful home contracting company offering expert service on circuit breakers. One could hardly fault his work ethic since he was continually answering calls during the game, switching delightfully from a fairly foul mouthed baseball fan to an educated, utterly polite, professional and rather slick salesman who was easily able to convince people to upgrade all kinds of things to circuit boards.
Directly behind them was a diehard Pirates fan ("We're REAL Pirates fans. We don't just PRETEND to be Pirates fans," making me wonder just how big this fake Pirates fan movement is) who we'll call L, who treated us to an extensive, and I must say, very persuasive, explanation of just why the current owners of the Pirates are the Worst People on Earth and how terrible it was that the other potential buyers had not in fact bought the Pirates at all. (Names were listed and I'm sure I could look them up, but I'm not going to bother.)
Moment one: So, diehard Pirates fan L is shouting, at some length, about the multiple, multiple inadequacies of the guy at bat (a Pirate) below, who apparently, is just awful, because the owners won't spend money on the right player, and all we need is a new owner and this guy at bat is totally overpaid and like )(&^&**& _)()*(*&(&*^*(&() and )(**(&*(&*( and )(*&*(&*()*( and also totally overpaid –
And with that, the guy hit the only home run of the game.
"God," said the minor league player in awe. "Talk shit about a player, watch him hit a home run."
"YAY!"
Moment two: So, it's the bottom of the 9th, and things are not, it must be confessed, looking too good for the Pirates, since although they have two men on base the score they are two runs behind and have two outs already and the batter already has three balls and two strikes, and the remaining crowd is roaring and roaring and –
"Yes, ma'am," said the contractor in an exceedingly polite voice. "I am at a baseball game. No ma'am, work comes first. Of course. Yes, ma'am."
Fly ball and OUT!
"Turns out she's a Marlins fan and taking her kids up to their game," he explained.
"You have a customer for life," said the minor leaguer.
Moment three, which had nothing to do with any of the above people: So someone else has noted that I was clapping for the Pirates, and told me that I was too pretty to be a Pirates fan, to which I answered that I'm really more of a Cubs fan anyway, because, well –
"That's just sad," he said, before I could go on to explain about the Red Sox and the Marlins.
It is, really. At least until some goats are sacrificed. Go Cubs!
Incidentally, based on this small and completely unrepresentative sample of the U.S. population, the current proposal to put Ronald Reagan's face on the $50 bill is not popular, not particularly out of a love for Ulysses S. Grant, but because, as a few people put it, Reagan should be put on a "real )(*(^ bill" that people will see. If I were Andrew Jackson's ghost, I would be getting a bit concerned about my fate here.
******
Small note: As you might have guessed, this computer is not in a very happy state of mind at the moment, what with fan failures, keyboard failures, and, well, ok, not enough ram to make me happy, although that's less a thing of the moment than an ongoing feature.
Hey, look. That sort of thing can happen to anybody.
Anyway, we had six seats at the Atlanta Braves/Pittsburgh Pirates spring training game at Disney's ESPN Wide World of Sports for all of two of us, which felt slightly like overkill.
Despite innumerable trips to Disney, this was my first trip to Wide World of Sports, which I must say did not exactly live up to the theme park standards on this particular visit, given that the entire place is undergoing massive renovations and planning for a small marathon this upcoming weekend, forcing people wanting valet parking (not us) to drive along an exciting dirt road that was rather less smooth than dirt roads tend to be, and people with preferred parking (us) to see a truly spectacular collection of Porta Potties. If you like that sort of thing, and don't tell me if you do, that was absolutely the place to fulfill your Porta Potty fetish. We ended up parking on one of the football fields, in a place that was not exactly marked for disabled parking, and went over some intriguing terrain to get to Wide World of Sports. For once I was exceedingly grateful that we'd selected the wheelchair and not the scooter. We then went through what I think are usually basketball courts but were now filled with sparkling Disney Princess and Lady Foot Locker supplies, up an elevator, and finally into a nice café, and then, finally, into the more official Wide World of Sports entrance. It was precisely the opposite of my general Disney feeling of wow, look at the parking lots.
We did, however, have excellent seats – right behind home plate. We could not possibly have chosen two teams that I am more neutral about, so naturally I cheered for the Pirates, because, well, pirates. (Equally naturally I shall spare you any tension – since I was cheering for the Pirates, naturally they lost.) This decision was to have a more momentous impact than I'd anticipated. But I anticipate.
It'd been years since I'd gone to Orioles spring training games with the Venezuelan down in Fort Lauderdale. I'd forgotten just how relaxed and laid back they are, even by baseball standards. (Which are not exactly high on the tension scale.) And I'd also forgotten just how much is lost when watching baseball on the small screen – most of the point, really, even if you have bought a little box of Cracker Jack to munch on at home.
(Incidentally, we did not get ANY Cracker Jack because some people felt that popcorn fulfilled that traditional need, which no. I was also amused to see the added Disney touch of menus placed by each seat featuring overpriced food that can be ordered and delivered to your seat, and even more amused to watch pretty much everyone selecting hot dogs and beer instead. It's baseball.)
Specifically, what you miss are the spectators, including:
To my left, a highly excitable Atlanta Braves fan with a remarkably booming voice and a penchant for colorful language and surprisingly creative metaphors that had at least one person saying, "Daddy will explain that later," followed somewhat later by, "Daddy really doesn't know. No, Daddy's clueless." He broke the genius of Daddy.
Directly above me, a former player for the minor leagues, now playing softball, and his two friends, one of whom runs a fairly successful home contracting company offering expert service on circuit breakers. One could hardly fault his work ethic since he was continually answering calls during the game, switching delightfully from a fairly foul mouthed baseball fan to an educated, utterly polite, professional and rather slick salesman who was easily able to convince people to upgrade all kinds of things to circuit boards.
Directly behind them was a diehard Pirates fan ("We're REAL Pirates fans. We don't just PRETEND to be Pirates fans," making me wonder just how big this fake Pirates fan movement is) who we'll call L, who treated us to an extensive, and I must say, very persuasive, explanation of just why the current owners of the Pirates are the Worst People on Earth and how terrible it was that the other potential buyers had not in fact bought the Pirates at all. (Names were listed and I'm sure I could look them up, but I'm not going to bother.)
Moment one: So, diehard Pirates fan L is shouting, at some length, about the multiple, multiple inadequacies of the guy at bat (a Pirate) below, who apparently, is just awful, because the owners won't spend money on the right player, and all we need is a new owner and this guy at bat is totally overpaid and like )(&^&**& _)()*(*&(&*^*(&() and )(**(&*(&*( and )(*&*(&*()*( and also totally overpaid –
And with that, the guy hit the only home run of the game.
"God," said the minor league player in awe. "Talk shit about a player, watch him hit a home run."
"YAY!"
Moment two: So, it's the bottom of the 9th, and things are not, it must be confessed, looking too good for the Pirates, since although they have two men on base the score they are two runs behind and have two outs already and the batter already has three balls and two strikes, and the remaining crowd is roaring and roaring and –
"Yes, ma'am," said the contractor in an exceedingly polite voice. "I am at a baseball game. No ma'am, work comes first. Of course. Yes, ma'am."
Fly ball and OUT!
"Turns out she's a Marlins fan and taking her kids up to their game," he explained.
"You have a customer for life," said the minor leaguer.
Moment three, which had nothing to do with any of the above people: So someone else has noted that I was clapping for the Pirates, and told me that I was too pretty to be a Pirates fan, to which I answered that I'm really more of a Cubs fan anyway, because, well –
"That's just sad," he said, before I could go on to explain about the Red Sox and the Marlins.
It is, really. At least until some goats are sacrificed. Go Cubs!
Incidentally, based on this small and completely unrepresentative sample of the U.S. population, the current proposal to put Ronald Reagan's face on the $50 bill is not popular, not particularly out of a love for Ulysses S. Grant, but because, as a few people put it, Reagan should be put on a "real )(*(^ bill" that people will see. If I were Andrew Jackson's ghost, I would be getting a bit concerned about my fate here.
******
Small note: As you might have guessed, this computer is not in a very happy state of mind at the moment, what with fan failures, keyboard failures, and, well, ok, not enough ram to make me happy, although that's less a thing of the moment than an ongoing feature.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-05 04:24 pm (UTC)