The thing that I love most about Brewers fans is their ability to travel. The Brewers can't go on a road trip without someone from Wisconsin taking their vacation around wanting to see them play. While other teams may have larger fan bases, the Brewers fans are as loyal as anyone. They're like really good stalkers. I like to travel with the team myself, but I prefer to spend my money on multiple games spread across the season as opposed to spending a lot on a single series. Another thing I love? Drinking. That's why I try to take the trip down to Wrigley for at least one game a year. I'm still traveling with the team, it doesn't affect my Brewer game budget and I can drink heavily. About a month ago I picked Thursday's 1:20 game as the perfect opportunity to make my annual trip and got four bleacher tickets because I wanted sun. My crew for this day was my buddy Oscar (Brewers fan) and two other buddies (Cubs fans). We all had the simplest of instructions, prepare to get legendary.
There are certain advantages of living where I live in Southeastern Wisconsin. One of them is I am pretty much halfway between Milwaukee and Chicago. Another is that because of this prime location I am able to coerce people into giving me rides to and from the train station. You can't really quantify how big of a difference this makes on your day's outlook. Knowing that you can do whatever you want without having to worry about how you're getting home is one of the finer pleasures in life. I managed to oversleep and therefore had to skip McDonald's breakfast so it was a bagel at the train station for me. (By the way, why isn't every bagel pre-split? I feel like they should be and I keep running into ones that aren't. It's driving me crazy.) One of the great things about the Metra train system is that you can drink on the train. Another great reason to never drive to a Cubs game. I brought the nine Miller Lites I had left in in my fridge for the trip. Yes, it was 9:30 in the morning. The funny thing is to me it was pretty clear that this wasn't going to be enough. Everyone said I was crazy because, you know, it was 9:30 in the morning. Forty minutes later I was proven correct. I have a gift for this sort of thing, but that still doesn't change the fact that it may have been the longest forty minutes of my life.
When we got to the city we skipped the bus and ended up getting a van cab. We found three strangers and split the ride seven-ways so it ended up being $6/person. This is clearly the way to go on both a time and cost basis, even if only half of my butt got to use the seat we still got from home to the game in just over two hours for the mere price of $14.
It was about 11:45 so we decided to grab a bite to eat before the game. We settled on a place called Yak-Zies mainly because it had somewhat outdoor seating. I say somewhat because they had a retractable roof in the beer garden. My "reminds me of Miller Park" line didn't go far. The place had a nice atmosphere, decent beer selection and we all enjoyed our food. I had their pulled pork sandwich that the menu said was made with "our version of BBQ... "a sauce with a kick"" that was excellent and I quite enjoyed saying the description in a dramatic movie trailer voice. It's the little things. The waitress was clearly over her head and she probably had too many tables so the service wasn't excellent, but we got our drinks and beers fast so I can't complain too much.
After lunch we thought about going to Murphy's Bleachers, but it was way too busy and went into the game instead. It was 12:30 and the Brewers were still having batting practice. This has to be in my top 5 earliest times ever arriving at the ballpark. I felt like the Happy Youngster except cool and normal looking. The sad thing about a Cubs game is that it wasn't that much more expensive going into the game than staying at the bar. An average Miller Lite or Bud Light costs $5 in Wrigleyville while inside the walls it goes for $6.75. I can't really complain too much considering I am all too willing to pay it. I wonder how much a beer would actually have to cost for me not to order one at a baseball game. I know it's over $10, but I am not sure if it's $11 or $15. (Wait, why am I writing this? I don't want this information falling into the wrong hands!)
When I go to a game one of my hobbies is eavesdropping on other people's conversations. Behind me someone noted that Bradley plays right field and wears number 21, just like Sosa did. I yelled out "WHAT!? They haven't retired Sosa's jersey? He hit 60 homeruns in three different seasons!" and someone took me way too seriously and started going off about how the Cubs will never retire the jersey of someone who disgraced the game of baseball like Sosa did. I didn't realize Jay Mariotti sat in the bleachers. He then got quite a few facts and numbers wrong, but I didn't really have the energy to correct anyone as I had some important drinking to do (and after the lineup was announced, some cleaning up to do.)
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The crowd around us wasn't TOO bad. There was some big time d-bags a couple rows in front of us, as well as some clear Chad and Trixie types at the end of our row, but we couldn't hear them so they didn't bother us. The people behind us were cool, there was some strangely quiet Brewers fans next to us and the people below us were alright even if one of them was pregnant (bringing a pregnant girl to a baseball game is like bringing your mother. Sure, you like her but you don't drink nearly as much as you want to when she's around). In about the second inning some older drunk people showed up and sat next to us. They sat next to my Cubs fan friends about two seats down and were way too drunk for someone their age to get at this time of the day. At first they were just moderately annoying, but then when my two friends went to get something to eat and some of these people's friends showed up late (stealing their seats in the process) they entered a whole new level. I said to the lady closest to me "Hey, you know there are two people sitting there?" to which she replied that "we'll fit them in here" (here being a space big enough for a small purse) and went back to pounding her frozen tropical drink while humming "Cheeseburger in Paradise". I didn't make that big of a deal of it because there was still plenty of room available in our aisle, but it's just the principle ya know? When my friends came back they got to witness this same lady spill her beer on the row in front of her where the people who were sitting had gotten up. If you spill at a beer at a game and you need to apologize, to everyone. The people who get touched by it, the people who saw it, the people who weren't there, God, the players and fans of beer everywhere. It's not something you just do and move on with your life which is what this lady did. Another thing you do is you wipe it up. Surprisingly she did this part. Only she wiped it up with the clothes of the people who had gotten up. So not only did these people have beer spilled all over their seats when they were gone, they had their clothes covered in it as well. These beer soaked clothes people were drinking Mountain Dew.
I didn't notice any of this of course because I was watching the game. Something that was far beyond the understanding of these people. I wouldn't have been surprised to hear "Why's this bar so expensive?" I didn't start to notice until the arguing was unavoidable. I look over and it's my two Cubs fans friends along with everyone else in our section against this group of people that I could best describe as "people who will buy a shirt from a vendor outside the stadium". Out of nowhere I hear "I AM THE FUCKING NICEST FUCKING GUY YOU EVER FUCKING MET! I'LL KICK YOUR ASS!" come from one of the older dudes in the group (as well as a fair amount of spit) and I am forced to step in and change the seating alignment. When the seating alignment changes, the pregnant lady in front of us finds out what happens and decides to step in because "nobody fights with a pregnant woman". Briefly, I think I'm in love. I mean, there's just something about a pregnant woman browbeating a group of strangers that pushes my buttons. Ahem. Perhaps I've said too much.
Now when we say something about bad fans it's these types of people we are talking about. They don't give a crap about the game and they don't care about anyone else around them. Half of the arguments they got into with people were on scoring plays. When the pregnant woman said something to them about stealing seats they implied that General Admission bleachers means that "anything goes" which is probably the most asinine thing I've ever heard in my life. These are the fans that every fan hates. These are the type of people that unite a crowd against them. We hate these people. We wish they didn't go to games, but since most baseball games take place outside and there is drinking involved there is no way we'll ever get rid of them. Make no mistake about it these people are so much worse than people who pour beer on the players because you have to pay attention to do something like that. Next time you see one of these people ask them what the count is, or even the count then watch them struggle to figure it out.
Anyways, they moved.
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