Terp 2 it is the Sports Authority
September 28th, 2009
This morning I woke up on a sofa with a too-small blanket and a light sweat. Homegirl on the sofa to my left was snoring. Homeboy to my right lost his clothes in the middle of the night. Me, I felt a thick cream something on my chest, on the blanket and on the pillow. I checked my pants to see if my crotch region was damp and it wasn’t so I checked my beard and it was dry. I carefully smelled the cream.
I’ve never had this much of an all-out sports dude weekend and I don’t know if I’ve ever gotten hooked up better sports wise. It’s tough to compete with my last second visit to one of the last games at Yankee Stadium (guy with too-big bags gets turned away at gate and he gives his tickets away!) and Shea Stadium (a sad old friend gets on-top-of-dugout tickets!) but we’ll give it a shot.
On Friday Clay Barton and I scoot in his car and gun to Houston. I’ve never been to a game in Minute Maid Park and Clay’s sister works for somebody who knows somebody and they have tickets and they tumbled far enough down the chain for her to get her hands on them. I am thrilled, especially because the Astros are facing the Cincinnati Reds in what might possibly be the most unexciting matchup possible. I check the standings and see they aren’t even the worst teams in their division but they are really close and this is somehow worse to me than being the worst team. (Side note: This is a fine second beat to the thrilling Pirates vs. Nationals matchup during the Dream of Meal tour) We chant “Fuck the Reds” and decide that there is no funnier team to Fuck than the Reds. Fuck the Diamondbacks is too much, fuck the Yankees is cliché’ and fuck the Blue Jays is rude. Fuck the Reds. Clay’s sister reminds us that we will be sitting next to important people and quite possibly, kids.
We do the beers before a game thing followed by the game day parking thing followed by the grand entrance to the park and our seats thing, which are about 15 rows up and 10 yard back from third base. We’re close. I mention this because the game is terrible and in no way a close competition. The Astros are horrible and for the first time I hear the phrases “DisAstros” and LASTros”. I chant for the Reds to put Rob Dibble in, a name that has stuck with me since the 1990 World Series, surviving a stormy Sports Dark Period (2000-2004) and all. The sad Reds fans who sadly traveled from Ohio to Houston chuckle. I have made this trip worthwhile to them. I am a helper.
In the seventh inning a fan in the front row catches a bat that slipped from a Red, saving a kids face. The crowd goes nuts and then boos when the Reds batboy takes it back. Then the crowd cheers when they bring him a new one. The fans are really getting into this game! We stay for the post game fireworks and the Best Buy Rock Band Battle of the Bands Finals, which looks like Best Buy Rock Band Battle of the Bands Anal on the screen. I am really getting into this game!
Post game we eat some of the worst pizza possible, barely edging out that North Dakota rainstorm gas station pizza from the Air Sex tour. We go to sleep, tomorrow will be big.
This sounds made up, I’m sure, but Clay’s other sister somehow got us All Access passes to watch the Texas A&M game from the field, from the press box, from wherever the piss we want as long as we don’t cross the dotted yellow line. Right pass the yellow line is the football field. We are really close. Pre-game I get a mini tour of campus from Clay who used to give tours when he went to school here and I can tell. We link up with what looks to be the WWE of tailgaters. It’s easily the biggest RV here and the most people and it’s loud and I discover Yard Golf and I guess I’ll put this brisket on this bread with this sauce and sure I’m wearing the one maroon shirt I own out of respect and it’s my Harvest Worship Center shirt. I can tell I still got my beard and hair on because sometimes people stare. Yep.
(Side note: I counted one other person with a beard and one other person with long hair. Also counted about 60 look-at-him looks.)
Watching the game from the field is pretty incredible and I wonder if I’ve been ruined. In college, Studio8 camped out for front row WWE tickets, got them, and ever since have not been really motivated to see a WWE show live because, well, we were in the front row that one time and you can’t beat that. I stop worrying about flying cars and I enjoy the game. Texas A&M cruise to victory, we cruise around the football field and we have to move out of the way a couple of times since the plays would occasionally spill over to the sidelines. That whole famous ”12th Man” thing appears to be very true.
Post game house party, I defended my title as “The Vince Carter of Keg Stands”, which has everything to do with my flair and creativity and nothing to do with quitting, having bad knees or liking Orlando. Apparently I was so excited about these that I ran to Twitter after every one. My favorites were the Dinosaur, the Hands-Free and the In and Out Boigie Stand.
Pizza came eventually, one large cheese and one large pep. On top of one was a lone slice of what looked like chicken garlic ranch apple pie pizza. It was for some guy who had already gone to sleep and once people realized this, sample nibbles came out to play. I said fuck it and took one big gulp when nobody (everybody?) was looking. I am the Vince Carter of Other People’s Specialty Slices.
I come up with a game where I take a piece of pizza crust and throw it against a brick wall and someone else tries to catch it with their mouth. It’s disgusting, which nobody seems to notice. One guy tries to do it all himself and fails miserably. He looks at me and tells me he needs me. Yes. This party needs me to continue throwing pieces of pizza crust against this brick wall for people to try to catch in their mouth. 4 (40?) people join the game. I think I am the life of the party at this point and I go inside to Tweet about it (priorities) and people are starting to sleep. I take back my previous thought and grab the longest sofa in the living room. I am the sleep of this party.
I wake up with a strange thick cream on my blanket. I check my groin, check my beard to make sure it didn’t come out of my body. I don’t feel like it’s mine. I’m pretty sure it isn’t. We decide to drive back to Austin early and I start putting together my notes for this column. I drank more beer this weekend than I ever have before. I check the ticket stub from Friday, check Saturday’s All Access pass to make sure this weekend actually happened. I’m pretty sure it did.
September 28th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
Eh, I’ve seen better sports weekends.
September 28th, 2009 at 5:05 pm
Oh, the night on the river center sidewalk. I can still taste the Arby’s. Someone stole my VCR copy of our RAW episode.
September 29th, 2009 at 8:24 am
toots
September 29th, 2009 at 10:07 am
Only the pictures remain.