Baseball is Boring. God.

Proud Member Of

A Day at the Ballpark
TLDR
Written by Nick on April 20th - 2004

"Wakey wakey," a familiar voice said, followed by the playful crash of a pillow over my dreary head. Sunshine poured in from the window, as I was too careless the night before to shut the blinds. Instant satisfaction is the only satisfaction that seems worth it; well, worth it at the time, at least.

Jon had endured just about enough of my sleeping habits, himself being the early bird catching worms and the sort. I had promised him the night before that I would use one of my D&D characters to finish the quest his friends quit on. Jon was the Dungeon Master, so I'm told, and his pals basically thought him the worst DM in the world, mostly in part that every single creature they encountered made mention that its name was "Wally", followed by minutes of a single man laughing to himself, wishing his friends would appreciate the humor.

"Let's go, I've been flipping through my notes for hours, I want to finish this quest," he pleaded. "I've got some really funny names this time".

"Tell you what, if you don't tell me these names I'll give you fifty dollars."

"I like your style."

I stepped into the other room to change into some jeans and a t-shirt, as I found the weather to be surprisingly warm for early spring in Boston. I was in a pretty good mood from the day before: I had found a package of Yu-Gi-Oh cards on the ground and took the opportunity to drop them down a sewer grate in front of a peculiarly large group of 8 year-olds. I told them Pikachu was inside.

"Ok, so you start in a barren cave soaked with ogre corpses," Jon began. This was a pretty good start, considering most of his quests started in jail with absolutely no way to get out.

"Alright, I guess I'll use my torch to look around. What do I see?"

"With your torch you see a huge bonfire in the corner."

"Wouldn't I see that anyway? Fires have the tendency to, you know, give off light."

"You keep that up and you'll be attacked by Hulk Hogan. You also see a door, you want to open it or something?"

"No, I'm plenty content just looking at it, thank you."

"You hear music from a distance: 'I am a real American. Fight for the right…'"

"Alright, alright, I open the door."

"Ok, let me check my notebook," Jon said as he searched for what the room contained. "Ah yes, you just entered the lava room. You were completely atomized."

"Oh."

"gg"

"Yeah, good game. You should call the others. See what time we're leaving for the game and all."

"I already did, they're probably on their way by now. It's quarter of five in the afternoon you lazy piece of shit."

"My alarm was set for five-thirty, buddy. Judge not lest thee be judged," I protested.

"The game starts at 7:05, you should probably go pick up Bill soon. Justin is meeting us in front of the gate with B and Emily."

"Who's Bill?"

"Fine, I'll do it," he submitted.

"Sucker."

Jon arrived soon thereafter with the newly acquired Bill. I would now finally have my chance to pretend kill him, whereupon I would then announce "Kill Bill". I strode toward him wearing one-piece yellow leotard and declared "BA NA NA" as the commercial so told, bearing a butter knife in my right hand. He took careful note of this and delivered a spinning roundhouse to my mandible. I said "Kill Bill lol" and he stomped on my ribcage. I don't think he got it.

We then began to pack our stuff for the game. Jon insisting on bringing his baseball glove, just in case the opportunity for a ball should arrive. I told him to be a man and catch it with his hands, but he insisted that a glove would increase his odds of catching the ball. I then argued the point that wearing a glove would increase his odds of catching a bing bing in his dinger. He kicked me in the jibbles.

"Let's go, we're late!" Jon exclaimed. He was always the type to be early for everything, and hell itself couldn't make him late. He had four alarm clocks, each set 2 minutes after the previous. Seeing as he was crashing at my place for the night I made sure to send him into a quasi-coma through a brash mixture of sleeping pills and liquid plumber. Please disregard the first part of this article where Jon wakes up before me.

The car ride there wasn't too bad, given that I'm only 45 minutes outside of Boston. We listened to Bill's 50 Cent CD until I made mention at how offended he was the lyrics. Bill took this opportunity to smash a full bottle of Bacardi over my dome piece. Jon threw Bill out of the car by his shirt, and dusted his hands clean. I thanked him, extending my hand to shake. He grasped it, pulled me toward him, and performed the stonecold stunner. He declared the action "SWERVE".

We pulled into a parking lot across the street from the park.

"That'll be twenty dollars, sir," the parking attendant told me.

"Twenty dollars? Are you going to change my oil or something, buddy?"

"Nosir. Let it stay on the property; perhaps look the other way when a hooker slips me a five-spot to take some guy in it for ten minutes. You want to be double-parked or triple-parked?"

I ran him over and searched his wallet for twenty bucks.

"Parking's on me, guys."

We met B, Emily, and Justin in front of Gate C at around 6:30. I asked B if he was mad that we didn't meet at Gate B. He admitted that he was, in fact, somewhat troubled that we chose C over B, but this all passed as we saw an a vendor selling Fenway Franks. He stuck my hand on the heating apparatus and all was well.

We found our seats, the only problem being that one of them was directly behind a support beam. Awkward glares were exchanged between all of your beloved staff members, none of which seemed willing to accept the obstructed view. I offered that we draw straws, but when my bluff was called I confessed that I had no straws with which to draw. Bill suggested that Emily take the seat, as she is a stupid girl who would probably ask too many questions about the game if she could see it. Emily voted that Bill's ticket be given to someone who didn't stuff socks in his crotch. A sockless Bill sat in the seat.

The Red Sox were playing the New York Yankees this afternoon, and we were fortunate to have a connection on the inside. It turns out that Justin's uncle is David Ortiz. Imagine that! He gave us 6 tickets behind the Red Sox dugout. It was fun! I took full advantage of the opportunity by giving Terry Francona, the manager of the Red Sox, a few pointers:

"DON'T SKIP YOUR #3 STARTER, YOU PIECE OF GARBAGE. WE COULD'VE SWEPT THESE CRACKHEADS."

The Bosox were up 2 games to 1 in the 4 game series against their archrivals, the New York Yankees. The enmity between these two squadrons is deeper than the soul, and I don't think any action known to modern man could quell the urge of a true Bostonian to rip out Jorge Posada's jugular with the wooden spoon from their Italian ice.

My Sox actually managed to come back from a 4-0 deficit, defeating the Brooklyn Brawlers 5 runs to 4. We were all ecstatic, given Bill who doesn't watch sports.

"What about tennis, that's a sport you know," I inquired.

"I am aware that tennis is a sport, Nick, and I don't really care," he contested.

"Football, too."

"OH MAN, I COMPLETELY FORGOT THAT FOOTBALL WAS A SPORT. I GUESS I LIKE SPORTS AFTER ALL."

"Poser."

By this time we had all had about enough of each other so we went to our respective quarters and slept.