Sunny Day at the Ballpark Bummed Out by Beer Bastards!

Saturday, June 5th was the kind of day baseball was invented for. Around 28 degrees, little wind, just a few faint wisps of cloud in the sky and the roof of the Rogers Centre wide open. With this in mind my good friend Doug, his charming sister Disey and I set out to cheer on the home team. $14 got us a seat in the upper deck and a mere $9.50 got us a beer, and I don't mean the big ass beer, just a normal beer.

Now I understand supply and demand and markups etc. but that's a little much. Lets assume that beer cost the concession $2.00, which it didn't but with wages for the beer sellers etc. lets say it does. I'm no math whizz but that's like a 375 per cent profit. Any where else charged you that much for a pint you'd tell them to get stuffed but they know they've got you. Who doesn't like some nice cold suds out at the old ball park?

So we sat in the sun and watched a great game and that'll make you forget you're getting hosed pretty quick so we polished off a few and enjoyed the day.

I knew that for some reason they stopped serving sometime in the seventh and it was my round so about midway through the sixth I set out to the beer stand. I would have bought them off one of the guys who go around selling them, but my hand to God, those dudes are tougher to spot than a Sasquatch in the upper deck. I saw one all day. It was around the fourth. I took a picture but it came out all blurry so I can't prove it. I don't understand this rarity 'cause who's gonna drink more beer than the skids in the upper deck, but I digress.

So I got to the beer stand and ordered two beers and a Mike's Hard Lemonade for Dize. I was then informed that I could only buy two beverages at a time. Well that's a little inconvenient but I only have two hands and there's no point in arguing so I get a beer and a Mike's Hard and climb back to the lofty heights of our seats to deliver them.

Time was growing short so I hustled back down to the beer line. Just as I get in there some guy comes around and starts yelling at us that the second there are two outs in the 7th all beer sales will cease and desist and if we're still in line too damn bad. And I mean he's already yelling at us like we did something wrong. Every fibre of my being wants me to tell him to settle down before I gag him with his Rogers Centre Fun Stifler shirt, but I'm staring hard down the barrel of two innings in the sun with no brewski so I keep my mouth shut.

There was a TV mounted near the beer stand and every bloodshot eye in that line up was fixed on it with an intensity and concentration usually only found in brain surgeons and people trying to diffuse a bomb. The Jays were at bat, down 2-1 to the hated Yanks and we needed hits dammit! Every ball brought a sigh of relief, every strike was like a punch in the gut and each hit was like a reprieve from the governor as we inched painfully closer to the vendor.

Suddenly the Yanks got an out. We were a mere three strikes away from tragedy. Things started to get intense. Suddenly for no apparent reason another guy ( he looked exactly like a bald Saddam Husein, I swear I'm not making that up) showed up and started screaming at us that we could only buy one beer now instead of two. Some of the people near the end of the line snapped and started screaming at the panicky vendors to pour faster or there would be dire consequences and flinging insults at our mustachioed tormentor.

Not me though. I was too close to the front of the line for that shit so I put my head down and mentally willed the line to move faster. Things were starting to get sketchy and I knew the vibe reminded me of something. Then I remembered : it was exactly like that footage of people trying to get on the last chopper out of Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War.

Suddenly the line parted in front of me and I was there. I breathlessly ordered a Bud and a wave of relief washed over me as I watched the ice cold elixir pour into my cup. As I headed back to the stands I knew the Yankees had gotten a second out as howls of protest erupted behind me, but I didn't care. I was going to enjoy my last two innings in the hot sun with a frosty beverage.

Unfortunately the Jays only managed to tie it up that inning and it ended up going 14 before Aaron Hill hit the game winning RBI. So that was seven beerless innings for no reason that I can see other than an aversion to making money on the part of the concessionaire. If they think the drunks are gonna sober up in two innings they are sadly mistaken. "But Officer, I can't have blown over. I havn't had a beer in 'nigh on two innings now".

When it comes to alcohol in Canada we just like to make up arbitrary, pointless rules. It's as Canadian as maple syrup. Go anywhere else in the world short of the middle east and odds are they'll have a much more relaxed attitude about where and when people can consume alcohol and yet their societies somehow continue to survive.

All in all though it was a great day and afterwards Doug said he had a urge for wings and the best wings in the land were to be found at some place he knew called "Hooters". I myself had never been there, but when we arrived parched and dehydrated from our ordeal at the ball park we were surprised and delighted to find that for 1 and a half more hours we could purchase $2 buds. They were delivered to our table in a bucket of ice and no crappy American beer ever tasted sweeter. Mrs. Goat, who had tragically been called into work that morning, met us there and we ate wings and drank Budweiser products until we forgot all about those hymie pricks at the sky dome.

THE END