In honor of the world's worst baseball team slogan (the Tampa Bay Ray's now infamous "We Are One Team" which is inexcusably stupid and impeccably cliché), I am giving this post the equally inexcusable title, "I am One American." And why? Because I had one cliché weekend and I want to tell you about it. But first, a little background is in order.
You may not know this (in fact, you probably don't) but as of the time of this writing The Tampa Bay Rays (the team used to be called the Devil Rays but then paid Pat Roberts for an exorcism or something and thus the devil has been cast out) are the best team in baseball. For those of you who are not baseball fans, this is a little like getting in your twenty-year old Ford and learning that it can go three hundred miles an hour with the air conditioning on and the radio blaring (which is weird because your car had no radio or air conditioning in this analogy, you loser).
As a result of this surgence (it can't be called a resurgence because the Rays have always managed to really and seriously and quite indubitably suck the sweat off the jock strap of life), some fans are actually going to the games at Tropicana Field (which is not a field because it's indoors under a dome and the interior looks like a high school gymnasium but whatever).
Indeed, though it sucks, the Trop still is one stadium. And I was one American. Deciding to go one day at a time, to three games this weekend.
I am one baseball fan.
I am one American.
And I am one internet writer typing about his Fourth of July weekend.
July 4th, 2008
My friend, Peek, who some of you may remember from the first six months of my blog (I'd link to it, but well, 2.0 sucks so I can't), decided to pick me in Tampa and then drive me to his home in St. Petersburg (next to the stadium) so we could attend two games that weekend.
The first game was a blowout. And the Rays were on the winning side of it. Another legitimate laugher for the Rays? I couldn't believe it. I mean, I kept looking around for at least one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. No such luck.
In honor of our gluttonous society, I decided to consume the following:
Four beers.
Two hot dogs.
One ice cream cone.
A bag of peanuts.
A box of steak fries.
I am a machine. But I am only one machine. And sadly, I can consume no more before the game ends. As Dirty Harry once said, "It's a smart man who knows his limitations."
July 5th, 2008
This game was no laugher. But the formerly Devil Rays still pulled it out by a score of three to zip, nada, nothing. I had one foot long hotdog, two beers and one ice cream cone. I am no longer one machine. I am one machine with serious intestinal problems. As I type this, my stomach is making noises similar to that of a dying cat. Sometimes, I really need to rethink my life.
As we're leaving the game, I get a phone call from one of my casual fucks who invites me to (of all things) the following day's Rays baseball game. It takes me twenty minutes to explain to her that she can't pick me up at my house because I am staying next to the stadium at my friends' house. It takes me another ten minutes to explain to her that this is actually more convenient for her than picking me up at my place in Tampa. By the time the conversation ends, I am so sick of battling stupidity that I feel it's time for the hard alcohol. I slept rather well that night.
July 6th, 2008
My friendly fuck really only wants me to go to this game (I soon discover) because she's treating her son to a ball game. This is fine with me. So fine that I ask her to just drop the two of us off and pick us up after the game so I don't have to spend the duration of another baseball game explaining things like "no, a walk is a good thing for your offense" and "yes, that was a strike out. They only get three pitches." And on and on. She doesn't go for the idea, but I refuse to let her son sit next to her. I mean, you ever try to enjoy a game with some dumbass babbling stupid questions about the most basic of rules? It ain't that fun.
After the game, another legitimate laugher that the Rays win, we drop off her son at her father's place and get to doing what we've wanted to do all day (that's right: play gin rummy–oh, and have sex).
So, July Fourth weekend I celebrated my independence by consuming mindlessly, having sex with a chick I don't even care for, and watching three baseball games live.
In other words, I did my country proud.
Because, as I may have mentioned, I am one American.
I love this country sometimes. Sometimes I really do.