There is a certain stage of drunkiness that people get to at baseball games, where people are allowed, within certain very broad parameters, to say whatever they want and are also given access to as much alcohol as they can pay for, which results in a level of artistic endeavour that you don’t see in a lot of other places. Years ago, I was at a Giants/Reds game when the bullpen mounds were still on the field. I was sitting about five rows back from the pitcher warming up, and a drunk guy a couple of rows behind me was waxing lyric about how much that pitcher sucked. Like a lot of poetry, it was both overwrought and laden with metaphor, and the theme the heckler had chosen was ‘personal hygiene.’ Specifically, he spent an inning and a half repeating the phrase “Your feet REEK!” with slight variations in the same hoarse voice and at the same volume, until I felt compelled to take action. What I did about it is a story for another time. Fortunately, these people often get restless and move on – whatever it was that drove them from the seats they paid for usually drives them from mine. That was the case with the woman yesterday who yelled at one point “Come on, let’s see a home run, right over our heads!” I don’t mind calls for homers, but 152 is about forty yards into foul ground. I’m mostly tolerant of drunk, but obnoxious and ill-informed is too much. Also annoying but much more quotable was the guy who, when things got tense in the late innings, came up with the bizarrely comprehensible “Shut it down! Shut it down like a bad Ferris Wheel!” which has the virtue of being good advice about Ferris wheels, but still utterly out of left field.
Lest you think the obnoxious drunks were the focus of the day, let me reassure you. It was a gorgeous day, blue skies and gentle breezes, and my guest was, in more than one literal way, one of my oldest friends. Gerry was a college friend of my dad’s and at one point the drummer in Dad’s jazz band. Since my dad died, we have gotten together to watch baseball and football games and occasionally just for lunch; this is the second time he’s joined me at the park, and this last year, I stopped referring to him as my dad’s friend and just started calling him mine. Gerry walks the very delicate line of always being curmudgeonly but never ill-tempered. We disagree on some things – notably tattoos and music these days – but agree on many more: politics, bacon-wrapped hot dogs, pitcher and batter clocks, and the proper way to perform the national anthem.
Sitting with him is an exercise in listening to stories, which is my second favorite thing to do with stories, Gerry was at the Marichal/Spahn game in 1962, the Greatest Game Ever Pitched; he played little league ball in Oakland in the forties, and grew up watching the Oakland Oaks of the Pacific Coast League. I get to hear about facing “King” Leel of Leel’s Paper Stand when Gerry was batting for Peterson’s Hot Dogs, and we talk about my dad, who I never really thought to ask about his love of sports when he was alive. Dad really loved the 49ers, but I think of him much more as a Giants man, maybe because that’s where my own spirit lies. That’s where we really connected, anyway. Gerry and Joe, two of my dad’s best friends when I was a kid, were some of the strongest influences on my sense of humor; if you think I’m funny now, they probably had a lot to do with it.
I didn’t take a lot of pictures today. It happens, when the person I’m with is so engaging. However, I did bushwhack this couple – Dennis and Cara – while they were buying food on the Promenade. I couldn’t let them go by without remarking on her rockabilly League of Their Own outfit; it made me want to renew my commitment to wearing suits to the ballpark on occasion. I had so much fun in the Gotham Club with my orange tie that I’m thinking of pitching dress-up days to potential guests to spice up the invitation. Even though Dennis is not fancied up to the degree that his companion is, he is still looking exactly the way that he should.
It is a banner day for meeting people – on the train on the way in, I was accosted by a couple from Birmingham, England who were in town for a week. They were coming to the game and wanted some ballpark info, and I gave them about three times as much as they probably wanted (what they wanted to know was actually “Is this the right train?”). I knew I wasn’t going to be walking around enough to give a tour today, so I directed them to the aquarium and the Lego statues and the good food and the views and sent them on their way. We didn’t reconnect, but I hope they had a good time, and that they eventually make it to Paxton Gate, the Musée Mécanique, and 826 Valencia.
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