A day at the ballgame

July 3. . .day before 4th of July. . .Cubs are in town playing the Giants. So, with wife, 2 sisters and Vansmack in tow, we decide to hit up two of the four games the Cubs are in town. July 3 is the 4th and final game of the series. On StubHub I buy 5 bleacher tickets, not knowing that the seats aren't exactly together. Oh well, there are two seats splitting us, we'll just ask the people to scoot down two seats and no big deal.

I meet Vansmack a few hours before the game, first pitch at 4:05, at Gordon Biersch for some lunch and a few beers while we wait for the suckers to get off of work and meet us at the stadium. Have a cheeseburger and manage to put down two beers before it's time to head for the stadium and meet up with the girls, who finally show up just before 4. Walk into the stadium and head for our seats in the bleacher section.

We find our row and, sure enough, there are two people sitting in the two seats separating the five of us. We file down and ask the guy would you mind scooting down two seats so the five us can sit together? He looks at us and says, "These are my seats!" I should note that the bleachers are just long metal benches with numbers on them referring to seat numbers, so, we aren't talking about fold down seats requiring one to get up and move, we are asking if he will slide down two seats. I look at Vansmack, then ask him again, "Excuse me, there's five us and we'd like to sit together, we'd appreciate it if you wouldn't mind moving down two seats." Once again, "These are my seats." So, Vansmack and I decide we'll take the two seats and let the girls take the three, whereupon we spend the good majority of the next 3 innings having a running conversation across the two people. At various times two people go up for food and/or beer (mostly beer), and then hand the beer across to the other side. Each time, the guy just picks up his radio and turns up the volume as he brings it closer to his head. Each time we speak louder to each other.

In the meantime, Vansmack and I try to convince the second person if there's anything we can do to make this easier on everyone, and she says no, he's just obstinate like that since these are his season ticket seats. But, she's a good sport and Vansmack and I end up talking to her about soccer (Spain fan) and Wimbledon (Nadal fan), and how she's from Chile and supports Spain in nearly everything.

About the 5th inning, Vansmack and I run to get some beer and we come back and the guy is gone, but his friend is still there. Even though those are "his seats" he apparently can't sit down for very long, so he walks around, and doesn't return until the 7th inning, by which time we've come back with our final beers for the day.

Now, normally one encounters only one incident like that a day, if that much. However, this being a baseball game, the day before Fourth of July, resulting in people getting out of work early, not having to work the next day, and sitting in the bleachers, something extra special happened shortly after we got back from our final round of beers- a girl fight.

Ok, not really a fight, so to speak, but rather, a bunch of girls in Giants gear sitting down the row from my wife and her two sisters started getting in a yelling match about the Giants and the Cubs. I don't know what started the yelling, but all I know is that a series of curse words starting flowing toward us, by us I mean my wife and her sisters, from these girls, spewing all sorts of profanities and vulgarities about Cubs sucking and kicking asses. . .all of this with a variety of kids sitting in and around us. In an effort to defuse the situation, Vansmack started up with a "Take Your Tops Off" chant which was soon joined in by several guys in the area (including one who pointed which girls he wanted to see with their tops off- one of which did not make the cut), at least one female doing it out of jest, and a mom with a 2 year old sitting next to me (she denied it, but I know what I heard). After a few minutes of them standing on the bleachers, pointing and yelling at my wife and her sisters, a loud cry of "Take Your Tops Off" and another mom asking Vansmack to think of the children, the ushers finally came over and. . .escorted the Giants girls away.

Frankly, I don't know what started it all, or how it escalated into a yelling match (more active participants have been slow in getting me their take). What I do know is that 3 or 4 drunk, female Giants fans got escorted out while 3 Cubs fans, who, I guess, were not as vocal, got to stay. Kudos to Giants security. Course, having grown up here in the Bay Area and having attended a number of Giants/Dodgers game and having sat in the bleachers in Candlestick, this was all pretty tame- there was one game I went to when I was like 10, where someone had a Dodgers pennant and walked down every aisle asking people to spit on it, and then later in the game tried to light another Dodgers pennant on fire, and finally, dumping several beers on a Dodgers fan who dared venture into the bleachers. It was also a night game; a cold, blustery, foggy night game at Candlestick.

The Monday after the holiday I run into a guy I work with who is also a Cubs fan and was sitting a few sections away in the bleachers. I tell him about the yelling and getting the girls ejected and he said, "That was you guys?" Apparently several sections worth of fans in the bleachers were aware of this incident.

Anyway, the Cubs lost that game; in fact, they lost the two games we went to that series. So, another Cubs hat gets put into retirement as I continue in my quest to find a Cubs hat that I can continually wear to a Cubs game where they win. I suppose I could also look at countervaling forces, such as people who I went with, and so forth. Maybe I should give the hat another try under other conditions; say, a Game 4 this fall.