Baseball Is For Animals. And Drunks.

When somebody asks me if I enjoy baseball, I usually say yes.
Of course, if somebody actually bothered to ask my why I like baseball, they'd find that I mostly enjoy it because it's an excuse to sit outside in the fresh air and get hammered.

So when I went to the Camden Riversharks game Friday night, although the air was most certainly fresh (well, as fresh as Camden air can be. Which is not so much fresh as it is....tangy), I was most definitely not hammered, which brought the enjoyment level down about 83%.
Yes, 83%.
(Don't ask - the math is complicated)

And it's not that I don't care who wins...it's just that...well, yeah, I don't really care who wins.

Just because somebody tells me that the Camden Riversharks is "my" team and that other team is the "bad" team doesn't make it so. I mean, what if I like the colors of the other team better? What if their pitcher is really cute? More importantly, what if "my" team sucks?
I'm supposed to just go down with the ship?!? Just bend over and take it because I happen to live in so-and-so township??!?
What the fuck?!?
Never.
I will choose which team I root for, thankyouverymuch. And if I happen to choose the team after the final scores have been tallied (or after I've gotten a good look at their Matthew Mcconaughey-esk pitcher with the firm backside), then it's nobody's business than my own.

Because I am a winner, and winners stick together.

Of course, I rarely know who's winning. Usually because I'm toasted, but last night I didn't really know who was winning for pure lack of enthusiasm. To be honest, the only thing I did care about was the possibility of a tie...which would have dragged the game out longer than the 3 hours it took to crawl through 9 excruciating innings (there's 9 innings in a game, right?).

The only excitement was from the fly balls, which dropped dangerously close to me on several occasions, causing me to duck and cover and comment in horror, (if I may quote myself here), "This game is for ANIMALS. You're all ANIMALS!"

Okay, so it wasn't that bad. It was a beautiful evening, and the Riversharks venue is lovely, offering spectators a panoramic view of Philadelphia and the Benjamin Franklin bridge.
That said, what does one do when one is afforded nice weather, a pretty view (of the pitcher), and not a lot else?

One eats.

I might have been at a minor league game, but I ate like a pro.
It's kind of what I do.
And I yelled at the umpire (or whatever he's called) when everyone else did, because the only thing I do better than eating...is screaming obscenities.

It's actually quite unfortunate that I have all the skills necessary to be a great fan:
I curse.
I fume.
I eat and I judge people.
And usually, I get drunk and rowdy and stir up the crowd.
See? All the makings of an excellent, die-hard fan.
All this raw talent...completely gone to waste for lack of care.
I'm like the high-school basketball player who gets a full scholarship to an ivy-league college, but ends up refusing it and running away to NYC, because deep down, I just want to dance, man!

Or something like that.

I'm not sure where I was going with this, other than to say that baseball is only fun when you're three sheets to the wind, but at least they supply junk food at the games.

So.
Lesson learned.
Don't go to ball games unless you're planning on A) drinking your weight in beer or B) eating your weight in funnel cake and soft pretzels.
Sure, the pitcher might be cute. But there's only so long you can stare at him before a fly ball gets winged past the first-base line and knocks your teeth out.

Any questions??