Monday, July 11, 2005

MUCK THE FETS

Walking into the ballpark yesterday afternoon I saw a guy around my age with a T-shirt bearing the above message. It was suddenly 1990 again, or the last time I saw that shirt. In '90 the Pirates were still in the East and what stood between them and their first division title since the '79 World Series team were Daryl Strawberry's Mets. Hence the shirt and the sentiment it expressed. It was ages ago that anybody'd take the Pirates seriously as a threat. That the guy had not only kept the shirt fot the last decade and a half, but also dusted it off for the occasion seemed somewhat pathetic. And with Pedro Martinez making an appearance, it seemed thoroughly delusional.

There might have been a hotter place in Pittsburgh than our seats in right field, but you'd have a tough time convincing my brood of that. They lasted five innings, which is coincidentally as long as Kip Wells lasted. Seconds after Jason Bay, Consolation All-Star, hit a Pedropitch about 393 feet to dead center field and fell five feet short of closing the gap to 5-4, I gave in to the various voices begging me to take them home. Someday they will better enjoy sitting out in ridiculously hot weather to watch baseball.

2 comments:

  1. Try making it through an entire Bucs game at 1 pm in September in Tampa when you're surrounded by bigger, fatter and more heavily clothed sweaty men jumping up and down, screaming, and grabbing at beads when the canon goes off.

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  2. Yeah, I can imagine. NFL games aren't dainty affairs. I probably wouldn't take my daughters to a Steelers game unless there was a box involved.

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