Opening Day

It was a glorious day at the old ballpark. In anticipation of a frigid Bay Area night, I was sufficiently layered up and expected the worst. Stay home? I wouldn't dream of it. This was baseball and it was opening day. I can't recall ever having made it to an opening day game in my lifetime, and definitely not when the home team, my Oakland A's, was hosting the World Champion (oh how it pains me to say that) Boston Red Sox. I've really grown to dislike the Red Sox of late. Not only have they been good lately, but they've been so vocal about it. Look at us! We're the Boston Red Sox. It only took us 86 years, but we finally won a World Series again. Never mind that the Yankees have won 27 of them during that span. Look at us, we're the Red Sox.

Their fans are the worst. They were kind of lovable also-rans before, but now they're downright obnoxious. There was a certain humility that lived inside of their pessimism each season. They always knew that somehow their beloved Boston Red Sox would let them down in the most painful way possible each season. It made for good lore. It was a given. Where would we be as a society without the tragic late season collapses of the Boston Red Sox. They have so much character built up, that it rubs off on all of us. We all feel their pain, but are glad it happens to them and not us. Not anymore. Now they are like the Roman empire, sloshing around in their drunken stupor slurring their Boston "R's" and loudly carrying on about how great they are all of a sudden. Clearly, winning is too new for them to have mastered doing so gracefully yet. That's okay though. It makes for nice banter at the ballpark. I thought I had taken a left turn onto 69th Avenue, but I must've taken a wrong turn and somehow been transported right out the other end of the Ted Williams tunnel because there were way too many Red Sox fans in my beloved Oakland Coliseum on this night. They were everywhere. I was surrounded by them. They're like the new Dallas Cowboys. Suddenly everyone's a fan.

Their one redeeming quality is that when they're not being obnoxious, they're pretty knowledgeable about the game and intimately informed about their team, so at least you can trade barbs with someone mentally equipped to wage a war of words from the cheap seats. Maybe those accents aren't so bad either. They sure do sound funny. It sure would be great to beat them.

I love everything about the ballpark. The crisp look that the field has, tightly manicured by the grounds crew, the noise makers and foam fingers thrust toward the sky, the makeshift cheers led by the rowdy guys with the drums and the flags in the bleachers, the odd cadences of the beer and chocolate malt vendors barking about their wares as they make their way up and down the aisles makes you just feel like tossin' a ball around with your old man and eating hot dogs. Speaking of my old man and hot dogs, I think I'm going to have to call my dad to find out if I put him through the same pain as my kids did to me at this game.

It was the third inning and I had settled in for the pitcher's duel that was running simultaneously with the insult duel going on three rows behind me between an A's fan and a Sox fan. It was a sellout and sitting in close proximity with so many must have raised the temperature in the stadium enough so as to make it almost comfortable. It was just the kind of game that I love to see. It was a 1 run game and they had their big name pitcher, Daisuke Matsuzaka, going against our #2(Blanton). Already, we had been treated by some nice glove work in the outfield, a heated argument between the A's manager and the umpire, as well as a cacophony of boos raining down on 8 people that walked down the aisles wearing Red Sox hats and jerseys. Then my kids wanted to eat.

You know that point when you're 10 years old and you're playing down at the park with some older kids and its getting dark and you were not only supposed to be home an hour ago, but you're also about a block past the imaginary line on the street where your mom usually allows you to wander off too and you're absolutely enjoying the carefree bliss of being a rebellious youth that's living on the edge and the satisfaction written all over your face suddenly vanishes when you see your mom's car pull up in the parking lot and emerge in slow motion holding the brown leather, 1970's style belt that is so big it has two adjacent holes for two pins on the buckle, and the happy song that is playing in your head stops and you know the party's over for you? It was kind of like that, but without the impending doom of knowing that I would be doing that dance while holding my own butt with both hands in hopes that the stinging would go away.

At first I tried to act like I didn't hear them, but they kept asking. As I stood and made my way down the row, I caught some of the other fans looking at me the way those inmates looked at Michael Clarke Duncan in the Green Mile when Tom Hanks was walking him to The Chair. "Dead Man Walking!" they said with their eyes. They knew what lie ahead for me once at the concession stand. Not only would the lines be as long the world is wide, but they would also move at the speed of the Space Shuttle being driven down that road, launch pad and all, on that big huge truck thing in Florida before a mission. Making matters worse, not all of the stands sell all of the items.

Optimist that I am, I walked from the stand near our seats in section 206 all the way down to section 223 before I finally owned up to the fact that the lines weren't getting any shorter. If it weren't for the 13 inch television screen at the front of that concession stand line, I would've missed the whole game.

I finally got back to my seats, food and drinks in hand, and pocket $29 lighter, in the 6th inning. It was a school night, so the kids had to go to bed, so we left during the 7th inning stretch. I caught the rest of the game on the AM 1550 on the way home.

I'll let you know what my dad says.