TODAY I HAD a very American day. I went to a baseball stadium for “Opening Day,” which is always the happiest and most positive day for people who enjoy Major League Baseball. Opening Day is all about the idea that a whole season of Professional Baseball is stretched out before you, a whole Summer of sports entertainment on the radio (my fave), or on the teevee, or even live and in person at the ballpark, where a simple game of baseball can be the foundation of a whole fun Social event, with friends and family, and they don’t even have to care about the sport itself, they can just be entertained by the phenomenon of the attending crowd, the spectacle of its scale, and the setting of the ballpark. Plus there’s snacks and beer! Play ball!
Opening Day is not the typical day at the ballpark, though, because there are lots of people there who might only go to one game a year, on Opening Day, because they don’t really care about baseball and they’re only there because somebody gave them a ticket or invited them to Opening Day because it’s an Event, the first game of the year in your team’s stadium. People like me, who go to baseball games regularly, get kinda annoyed at the Opening Day people, especially the ones who think Opening Day is all about getting super fucked-up drunk before they even get inside the ballpark. Of course there’s always drunks at the ballpark, but Opening Day is like going to a Football Game, you know?
Have you ever been to a Football Game? Holy shit, there are so-ooo many more drunk-ass motherfuckers at Football Games compared to Baseball! That’s not a Judgement or whatever, I’m not trying to say one sport is better than the other one, I’m just saying the fans of Football Games are way better at getting supremely twisted before, during, and after the game, and so that’s like, my Platonic Ideal of getting fucked up at a Sporting Event, and the closest Baseball Games get to it is Opening Day.
Anyway, I bought tickets to Opening Day, and I even splurged and bought parking, which I never do, because most of the time when I drive to the game I park in a spot I know in the city where it’s free, and then I walk to the ballpark from there to save a few bucks. Not today, though, today I was gonna treat myself and get parking on the stadium lot! What the fuck was I thinking? I got to the lot and there was a guard waving people away saying it was full. What the fuck? I bought a ticket to this parking lot, how can there be too many cars? I didn’t get mad at the guard, though, I just asked them if there was another lot, and while that was happening, somebody drove out, and the guard let us in to what they said was the only spot left in the parking lot. OK, cool, a little Opening Day Magic! Then we walked from the lot to the baseball stadium, and yeah, it was farther away than the free spot where I usually park. I looked at it later on Google maps and it was 0.2 miles more of a walk. D’oh! Ten bucks down the drain, but walking is good for you, right?
We got inside the park eventually, and bought some beers, which took a really long time, because it was Opening Day and the lines were long. I noticed they raised the prices on beers this season, mine was ten bucks, OK. We sat down to watch a game of Professional Major League Baseball, and it was fine, it was a nice sunny day, people were happy to be doing stuff in a big giant crowd (I know), and at some point I wanted to enhance my Opening Day with a hotdog.
I lined up at the first spot I saw that had hotdogs, and the hotdog vendors were saying they didn’t have any buns for the hotdogs. I recalled another time I was in a large entertainment venue and tried to get a hotdog and they didn’t have any hotdog buns. That time I just got a coupla hotdogs with no buns, but this time I wanted the whole Major League Baseball Hotdog Experience, you know? I mean, the stadium is banging me eight bucks for a not-so-hot hotdog—at least they looked not-so-hot. I took a picture of the hotdog presentation.
So I’m waiting in an Opening Home Game Day of Major League Baseball eight dollar hotdog line and no bun after ten bucks for bad parking that I almost got shut out of, then it’s another ten bucks (times two) for Domestic beers—not even Imports, and this is after whatever I paid for a fucking ticket, which I can’t even remember, I dunno, 40 bucks, maybe, for these seats, I took a picture!
Heckuva view, ha? Yeah, I’m not made of money, I can’t afford good seats, I got marginal seats! And shit parking! And I didn’t even get a nice Import beer! I know I already said that, but I was thinking about this crap while I stood in the stupid fucking hotdog line, and the longer I looked at that sad pile of dogs in that metal tray sitting on top of a can of Sterno, the less I felt like rewarding the ballpark with eight bucks for serving me a marginal goddamn Sterno hotdog, you know? So I didn’t get a fucking hotdog.
Speaking of marginal, I am only gonna identify the home team I root-root-root for by their initial, which is the O’s, and they won today! Opening Day!
Later on after the game I saw this Opening Day news, look, I took a screenshot!
One Point Two Billion! I seriously hope they Reinvest and Reimagine their goddamn hotdogs! Play ball!
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