You Suck!!!

So, as you have probably already read, Mandy and I went to the Sand Gnats game on Monday night. The Sand Gnats were victorious, winning 10-4. They batted around in the first inning, scoring 5 runs, including a two-run homer from the second batter. Good times, although sweating out all of the water in my body and replacing it with dollar Natural Lights was probably not the best strategy for a great Tuesday morning.

Anyway, we sat about five rows up on the first base line. Two rows below us and a little to the left was a man who had perhaps the greatest disparity between energy level and signifigance of the event that I have ever seen. My only theory is that he recently moved from either Boston or the Bronx and had simply not adjusted his approach from a Yankees-Red Sox game in October to a single A baseball game on a Monday evening in 100 degree weather. I'm all right with that. I'm all for enthusiasm and can't falut anyone for rooting for our Savannah Sand Gnats. I even enjoy the occasional creative heckling.

But this guy was a giant douche. He would sit quietly for several seconds, maybe taking a sip of his beer, the whole time shaking with the kind of destructive energy that gets people kicked off The Real World, and then he would cup his hands around his mouth and yell something to the effect of "You walked the first guy? You suck, 34! You suck!!!." "They're warming up the bullpen, 34. It's only the first inning. You suck!!! You SUCK!!!" After about 10 minutes Mandy and I were making jokes like, "I wonder if that guy thinks the pitcher sucks? It wouldn't be so bad if he changed it up a little, showed some originality."

So the next day I went into work and the bartender said that a couple of guys from the opposing team had gone to Chili's after the game. Apparently they had been annoyed by a heckler. They said it wouldn't have been so bad if the guy had just had some originality and hadn't kept yelling the same thing. So my question to the heckler would be this. Yes, the pitcher was bad, but pitching is hard. You were terrible at heckling the pitcher, which really isn't that difficult. So, who really sucks?

Take Me Out to the Ball Game!

On Monday, Matt and I spent our evening watching a Sand Gnats game at Historic Grayson Stadium.  For those of you who don't know, the Sand Gnats are Savannah's minor league baseball team, and they're a feeder team for the Mets, which makes Matt happy.  Historic Grayson Stadium is the oldest minor league stadium in the country, and a bunch of old famous players like Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron and Jackie Robinson played there, which means that it's important.

 

And in case you don't know what a sand gnat is, well, it's a gnat that will bite the shit out of you.  They're evil, but a pretty cool name for a team.  The mascot used to be awesome, when it was Gnic the Gnat, but then Gnic was scaring all of the little kids, so they changed the mascot to Gnate the Gnat, and Gnate is lame.  Matt always talks about how he wants Gnic to come back, and to beat Gnate to a bloody pulp on the pitcher's mound.  I'm sure that wouldn't scare children.

 

Gnic:

 

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And Gnate:

[source]

 

See what I mean?  Don't you kind of want to punch Gnate in the face?

 

The stadium is part of Daffin Park, the badass park that's only blocks away from our house.  Daffin is where Mitch and I go for our walk/jogs (something that needs to start happening again soon, lest my skin explode because it can no longer hold in all the fat), and it's one of those places that makes me happy to be living in Savannah. 

 

So, on Monday we made the trek to the stadium, in 97 degree heat.  I had a stroke of brilliance (one that may or may not have saved my life) when I decided to wet two wash cloths and put them in a big ziploc bag of ice.  Monday was one of the hottest nights that has ever happened in the history of the world.  I felt like my body might, at any moment, just burst into flames.  So it was nice to pull out an iced-down washcloth and pat my sweaty, disgusting face.

 

One of the reasons we'd decided to go on Monday was because the stadium is having a Dollar Mondays promotion, which meant that admission, hot dogs, small sodas, and Gnatty Light beers were all $1 each.  So the night was great fun, and super cheap to boot!  Three cheers for fun and cheap!

 

Some highlights:

• A little girl sang a terrible rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner."  Now, I love this song as much as the next patriot (I started to love it even more when I learned that F. Scott Fitzgerald is a direct descendent of Francis Scott Key--what a family of writers!), and I tear up when I'm standing there with my hand on my heart.  I just wish that the singers of the anthem would lay off of the rifts.  "And the roo--ahh-aahhh--keeh-eeets reee-ahh-addd glah-aire."  Seriously.  It's a pretty song the way it is, and we don't need the star of the high school chorus fucking it up.
• Heckler guy.  Matt's going to tell you more about him.

• Random proposal between innings.  Kind of cute, but I think I'd have killed Matt if he'd proposed to me during a minor leage baseball game on a Dollar Monday.

Anyway, it was a hellafun night, and we laughed and joked and I provided my really insightful commentary about sports (being a sportscaster is basically my backup job) like "Run faster all the way around!" and "You know what the Sand Gnats are good at?  Throwing and catching."  Turns out that they're also good at the hitting, because they won that night, and they're currently in first place in their division, or in the world, or something.  Go Gnats!

So if you're in Savannah, don't forget to go to a few games this summer.  If you're not, come visit us and we'll take you.  The guest room awaits.