MAJOR LEAGUE MEMORIES
Baltimore Orioles My baseball-addicted friends and I are rather intense when we are at the park. We used to be the clowns of the left field bleachers at Baltimore’s old Memorial Stadium. Admission was $4.50 and a beer was less back then (1987-1991). We rarely drank much at the games because we were just too busy watching the game. We would bet on every inning, every at bat, and sometimes on every pitch. Don’t try any of that “baseball is boring” shit on this crowd or you could very well get thrown out of the section. Anything that got in the way of our watching the game was asking for it from this group. We would heckle the hecklers, shout down the loudmouths, and God help you if you booed Cal Ripkin.
I loved talking to the old timers around us; people who had been Orioles fans since the beginning, fathers teaching their sons how to keep score, grand fathers telling their grand kids about the days before the designated hitter. It was from the depths of Memorial Stadium’s left field bleachers that the best baseball betting game was invented by my friends Andy and Tom, and me.
On the night the best betting game was invented, Andy, Tom, and I had been elevated from our lowly bleacher seat status to the lofty heights of a sky box suite through some work connections. We were eating and drinking for free with about ten other people we had never met before. To break the ice we started our usual degenerate betting games like guessing what the pitcher would throw next or which team would score first. From this our game—BALTIMORE BEER CUP BASEBALL--was hatched.
BALTIMORE BEER CUP BASEBALL official rules:
Every one who wants to play puts a dollar in an empty beer cup. One person takes the cup. That person takes the first batter. If the batter hits an extra base hit the person with the cup keeps the kitty. If the batter fails to get an extra base hit that person puts another dollar in the cup and passes it on to the next person. If he walks you just pass the cup with no penalty. If your batter strikes out, hits into a double play, or flies out to the warning track you must put in two dollars before passing the cup. If your batter hits a home run all other players must give you an extra dollar. After someone takes the pot everyone must ante up again and play resumes.
The beauty of our game is that it gets non-fans involved in every play of the game—something real baseball fans do anyway. I wouldn’t suggest you play with more than ten people and 6-7 is ideal. During the course of the game any player has the right to yell out “Embellishment” and add another rule which must be approved by a majority of participants. Have fun.
Florida Marlins It is October 1997 and the first game of the World Series between the Florida Marlins and the Cleveland Indians. A friend and I don’t have tickets but we feel we deserve to go to this game by the mere fact that we are Florida’s most avid baseball fans. Joe Robbie Stadium is a huge dual-purpose arena that holds 70,000 fans for football so we figure we have a chance—there can’t be that many baseball fans in the whole state. We get there early, at least an hour and a half before the first pitch. The Marlins usually draw less people than an art show here in south Florida. Most of the fans don’t know the difference between a balk and an earned run.
Can’t we just take some sort of baseball test to get into the game? The Marlins need at least a couple of knowledgeable fans if they really want to win the Series. We run across a couple of scalpers who are all asking upwards of $500 for tickets—a little out of our price range. As game time approaches our chances are looking worse and worse. As the National Anthem is being played we are watching the action on TV outside the stadium in one of the beer tents. We resign ourselves to watching the game from here and console ourselves by saying, “At least we tried. At least we’re here.”
At the end of the first inning my friend goes to take a leak or whatever. He comes back flashing two tickets. I ask him how much he paid and he says $20. He just happened to be walking by a ticket booth as they reopened to sell seats in a section that they hadn’t planned on opening. It’s perhaps the end of the second inning by the time we climb up to our noose-bleeds. We are at a World Series game—the first for both of us.
Seattle Mariners One of my favorite things is to be out somewhere in the Cascade Mountains, climbing or mountain biking all day, and wrapping it up when the light starts to fade. In the summer at this latitude the light lasts pretty late, and it’s almost always sunny. On other evenings I will sit by a mountain stream, smoke a cigar, and watch the sun set, but on game days we are eager to pack up the gear and head back to Seattle. We usually need to drive a couple of miles west to pick up the radio signal. If we are really lucky we will break into the middle of a good game and we won’t lose the signal at crucial moments meandering through the mountain passes. If we are truly blessed we will make it back to Seattle in time to find a bar with a TV. I always feel like I actually deserve a beer on days like these. The beer always tastes better on nights when the Mariners win.
WALKING HOME AFTER THE GAME
