America's favorite pastime

Baseball.

The boys of summer.

Peanuts and Crackerjack, hot dogs and beer.

Margie bought tickets for herself, me, my Dad, my Bro in-law and my sister to see the Philadelphia Phillies vs. the St. Louis Cardinals, in Philadelphia.

We all met up at the park, had a nice lunch and then got to our seats.




It was hazy, hot and humid but luckily we were sitting on the shady side of the stadium.

My Dad, my sister and Bro In-law are Phillies fans.

Margie is a Cardinals fan.

I'm indifferent. I've never been a fan of baseball. I don't watch it on TV, but I don't mind seeing it live. There isn't much to it really. You sit, eat hot dogs and peanuts, drink beer and chat about this and that. Stand up and clap when your team does well, boo and hiss when the other team does.

America's favorite pastime.

Being at a live game and watching the fans can be more entertaining than the actual game itself. There are the real die hard fans that are decked out in full fan attire (that would be Margie), there are families that come and sit together, Fathers and sons, friends and neighbors...and the occasional "special group" of people.

We had a whole bus load of "special people" sitting in front of us. Now I don't mean special like people that may be handicapped or challenged in any kind of "apparent" fashion. I'm talking about that special group that comes together on a bus, start drinking on the bus and continue drinking all throughout the game. This was a really odd group because you had a mix of trailer park people and frat boys all mixing together. They kept changing seats. A bunch would get up and leave and then a whole new set of people would come in and take their place.

It was a bit bizarre.

My sister and I were enjoying them - they were entertaining...for a while.

Before I continue I need to explain something first. Baseball in the Northeast of the US...especially in NY and NJ has somewhat of a wacky cult following.

I guess you could say that we are "passionate" about our sports and enjoy showing our passion by yelling and screaming and jumping and clapping. You get the idea. In the Northeast, if you walk into a Yankees game wearing a Boston Red Sox hat you are taking a chance with your life. If you go to a Phillies home game wearing the opposing teams hat, shirts whatever - you will be heckled.

Some people are good natured about it. Some are just assholes.

Meet Mr. Asshole:



As soon as he walked in you could tell he was an "over enthusiastic and quite inebriated" fan. He would start clapping for no real apparent reason and wouldn't stop. He would stand up and just stay there blocking every one's view while we were all screaming at him to sit down.

Plain ol' obnoxious, stupid jerk.

As the game went on and the Phillies were kind of giving the Cardinals a whoopin' this guy became more and more vocal.

And then he spotted our lil' Margie sitting there with her Cardinals hat and shirt on and she became his target. He started yelling at her and making fun of Albert Pujols (who is like THE best player in baseball at the moment) insinuating that Pujols takes steroids and aiming all his drunken idiocy on Margie.

Neetzy remarked that she has kids in her high school class that act the same way and she always wondered if they grew out of it.

The answer to that question is: NO!

Mr. Asshole was living proof!

Mr. Asshole's friends were trying to get him to shut up and he even got a warning from Security to behave himself.

He is "special" that is for sure.

And so Mr. Asshole, I dedicate this song to you.

Everybody sing along!!!



We will never forget you!