Going to the ballgame is an experience everyone should try at least once in their lives. It doesn’t even matter if you don’t like baseball; the excitement of watching a game live instead of on the TeeVee is really something else.

The other day I had the opportunity to go once again and it was quite an experience. There was not one, not two, but three altercations. There was a fourth incident but it doesn’t really count because a chick got pissed off that her boyfriend stepped away from their seats for what she deemed an extraordinary amount of time. In the boyfriend’s defense, the beer lines were REALLY long. She left and he came back about a half hour later. He asked if we knew where she was and everyone in the section told him she left. A Milwaukee Brewers fan said that he told her not to leave. This was a lie.

The first altercation occurred with the Brewers fan. He decided he wanted to “talk shit” to the Yankee fans sitting behind him. Yelling and cussing and carrying on occurred and he decided to escalate the situation by standing up. He was 4’ 8” tall. The two Yankee fans also stood up but when they realized they were dealing with a midget, they sat back down but continued to argue. The cops came over and escorted the Brewers fan away. This was the end of the game for him. It was the second inning.

The second incident occurred betwixt a young couple. The girl had a couple of buttons on her pocketbook of the bands The Doors and The Who. She was like 12 years old. Okay, she was in her 20’s but it was still pretty surprising to see those two bands instead of Lady GaGa or some shit.

She was sitting there minding her own business eating soft serve ice cream out of a decorative helmet cup. She was enjoying the shit out of it, maybe a little too much as she started kicking her feet back and forth. Maybe she was 12. In her fervor, she accidentally knocked over her boyfriend’s beer. It wasn’t a beer that came in a “souvenir cup” but a smaller beer that sold at the concession stand for $8. For $3 more he could have got the souvenir cup and more beer, but who am I to judge? When the beer came sloshing down the aisle, this arose his ire. He let forth a tirade of F-bombs, S-grenades and I believe he also called her a stupid bitch. I’m not sure about the last one as I was shocked by all of his anger, but I’m definitely sure he was saying mean things. He went on to ask if she knew how much beer costs. When she paused to answer, I offered up, “$8 for that little crappy cup you had and $11 for the souvenir cup.” He shot me a look. I shrugged my shoulders. He stormed off stating he had to go get another beer. Flash forward to five seconds later: He’s back to his girlfriend. He ran out of money and had to ask her for some. She did not give it to him. Way to go young girl with good taste in music!

The final altercation involved what I thought was a Russian Man and myself. It turns out he was Polish, but more on that in a minute.

Whilst at a ballgame I like to partake in a few things. I like to have a hawt dawg (or two), maybe a pretzel, and definitely ice cold beer. I like to get one souvenir cup and then the rest of my beer purchases will be in a safety plastic bottle that are $1.50 cheaper. What can I say? I’m frugal. I got up to get a beer, careful to say excuse me to the two people that were sitting on the end. I returned and again made sure to say excuse me. I sat down and sipped on the beer whilst enjoying the game. A few innings later is when the old adage, ‘You don’t buy beer, you rent it.’ kicked in. Nature called and off I went careful to say excuse me again. When I returned from the bathroom, the man was standing. I said excuse me but he didn’t move. I then invoked the gentle shoulder tap. He got out of the way and I was making my way back to my seat when he decided to speak out to me.

“Why do you get up so much?” He asked in a very thick accent.
“I’m sorry what?” I replied.
“Why do you get up every half inning?”
“I don’t think I’m getting up every half inning, but what’s it to you?”
“Sit down.”
“What?”
“I said sit down.”
“Who the fuck are you?”
“Every half inning you are getting up and down, up and down. Why don’t you just sit down?”
“Why don’t you go fuck yourself?”
“What did you say?”
“I said go fuck yourself. What do you think you are, some sort of tough guy?”
“What do you think you are some kind of tough guy?”
“Well now you’re just repeating what I’m saying.”
“Sit down. Sit down.”
“Fuck you, I’ll sit down, get up, do whatever the fuck I want.”
“Why do you use so much profanity?”
“Because you’re being a fucking dick.”
“Is that the best you got?”
“Fuck you.”
“Is that the best you got?”
“Fuck you Drago. Is this the part where you tell me, I must break you?”
“Okay I’m done”
“It’s about time you fucking piece of shit.”
“Enjoy the game.”
“Fuck you.”

I finally sit down and the friend that I attended the game with says to me, “Dude, what the fuck are you doing? He’s like 7’ 2.” I looked over at the man and saw that my friend was correct. He was quite tall, but fuck him. I didn’t do anything wrong. Flash forward to the next inning: The man that criticized me for getting up was not in his seat. My friend offered me $20 to go sit in his seat and wait for him to return. I thought about it but declined. When he came back with a chocolate-coated ice cream bar for the chick sitting in front of him, I shot him a glance. Without speaking any words, he knew what I was saying. Around the 5th inning, he decided to call it a day and left the stadium. The two guys sitting behind us while all of this transpired decided to give me their two cents.

“You know those Polish people they don’t like to get up.” Said Guy #1
“Polish? He wasn’t Russian?” I asked.
“No he was definitely speaking Polish to that chick he got the ice cream for.” Said Guy #2.
“That sucks. I did my Drago impression for naught.”
“What?”
“Nothing.
“Yeah, they take their soccer games very seriously over there.” Guy #1 said.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“They don’t get up for nothing. When they sit down to watch soccer, they’re in that seat the entire time.” Guy #2 said.
“Okay, that’s cool but this ain’t soccer and we happen to be sitting in seats that the beer doesn’t come to. So we gotta go to the beer.”
“Hey, you’re preaching to the choir kid.”

And with that final exchange, the rest of the evening went without a hitch. The Yankees won and all was right with the world.

The End