Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Where's Truby?.......Update

Four months ago, in the midst of what was turning out to be a magical season for the Tigers, and when Comerica was still drawing only about 22,000 people a game to watch the best team in baseball, I wrote a post entitled Where's Truby? where I envisioned a fantasy world.......wait fantasy isn't the right term, more like hell without bounds.....yeah I like that better, where Comerica would be overrun by bandwagon fans and the people most likely to be trampled to death by this influx would be the longtime diehard fans who suffered through the 12 years of losing and were faithful and stupid enough to show up to late season Tigers/D-Rays games during a 119 loss season to cheer on the likes of Kevin Witt and George Lombard, or in other words....me. Well that hellish fantasy became a reality today as I was shutout in my search to find tickets for the upcoming ALDS series that went on sale about 45 minutes ago, (although hope isn't completely lost I'm now waiting in a virtual Ticketmaster queue wearing a Steve Sparks T-shirt jersey, desperate as the search engine struggles to find a single (1) ticket for me to go to any of the three possible games).

Now I'm not going to complain because it has been great to watch the Tigers play meaningful games in September for the first time in my conscious memory, (I was three the last time they went to the playoffs), and I would rather have to compete to buy tickets to watch a Tigers game in a packed and rowdy Comerica then procure my tickets for free from a church group that's dumping it's extras because no one from their congregation decided to show up to a late season game between two teams that were a combined 70 games out of first place. Also I don't have a problem with 90% of the fans who have remembered that Detroit has a baseball team and decided to make a few trips to the ballpark this year. Detroit always has been a great sports town, (as evidenced by the fact that Ford Field still sells out every game despite the fact that the Lions haven't been relevant since at best the Barry Sanders years and at worst 1957), and most of the fans who have come out to Comerica this season have been pretty knowledgeable, which leads me to believe that these people were always Tigers fans and followed the team from afar and kept interest in them up until college football season, but didnt think the team was good enough to justify an expensive night at the ballpark and a long trip to Detroit, which is more then justifiable and actually damn more reasonable then actually going to the games over the past decade, but I digress.

Also, there have been people who you can tell havent been fans of the Tigers for awhile but who like the game of baseball and have gotten to know this team well and have taken a genuine, vested, interest in this years squad. Again I applaud this. I love baseball and am glad people around the state are rekindling their interests in the sport and have no problem losing out on seats to these types of fans. However, there are two categories of people that I know will make up a sizeable portion of the crowd at the ALDS while I'm sitting on the pavement watching highlights on the scoreboard from Adams street, and they are.

1: Small children: I'm glad I didn't go to any Tigers playoff games when I was three because A) I was to young to fucking remember it anyways, and B) I would have either fallen asleep by the sixth inning or been tired and bitching to go while also ruining the game for my Dad and people in the immediate surrounding area. Also I would have been ridden with STD's, (whoops thats a whole other topic, where were we..........oh yeah), guilt years later in knowing that I probably stole a ticket from a deserving fan so that I could be entertained by Paws the Down Syndrome Tigers Mascot. And what do I get for being gracious enough not to go as a child? That's right, nothing. And when they show the first 2 year old girl sleeping on her mothers lap at 9:30 P.M. in the 4th inning as her seat goes unoccupied and the announcers go "Awwwwww, how precious" I'm going to be putting my fist through the TV screen in a rage and potentially electrocuting myself Frank Grimes style. Awesome.

2: Girlfriends and the guys who bring them: I can see it now. 1 guy has three tickets to a game and two deserving friends who want to go and would kill for those tickets, "please god let us kill for those tickets", they would say. However the ticket holding guy also has a girlfriend whose demanding to go to the game AND take one of her girlfriends so she can have fun. Being a total bitch the guy agrees to take the girlfriend and her friend, while his real friends question his manhood/integrity/worth as a human being. The Girlfriend and her friend show up to game in matching small Tigers jerseys, baseball hats pulled low over their eyes and carrying fistfuls of $8 beers paid for from said boyfriends wallet. Girls become increasingly drunk and obnoxious, yell out things like "Brandon Inge is HOT!!!!!" openly flirt with guys walking up the aisle, and generally piss off everybody within a 10 row radius, all of whom glare at the boyfriend who has an "Aw shucks, I know she's annoying but she's so cute with her little Tigers jersey" face. By the fifth inning they are slowly passing out and one of them makes a trip to throw up all over the concourse. The Girlfriend convinces the reluctant boyfriend to leave in the sixth inning with the promise of sex before passing out in the car as the Boyfriend calls his angry friends watching at home to see how the games going because the Girlfriends friend wants to listen to Danity Kane on the radio and as already established the boyfriends a total bitch and allows this to happen. I hate these kind of guys and the fact that one of them is going to be able to attend the game instead of me is infuriating..........Fuckers.

7 comments:

I said...

priceless

Anonymous said...

My (future) bastard lawyer friend, you have missed out on the worst of them. The freaking corporate bastards. These are the people that take all the good seats and only show up when times are good (i.e. only on Openning Day). Nothing in the world is so bad as to see a group of 4 guys in suits right behind home plate sipping on their beer because they are "entertaining" clients. Or worse, typing on the Blackberry in the bottom of the ninth.

I have to love them though, they don't show up and I get to slide down into their seats. Note - see Bill working the aisle between 128 and 129. Buy the cheapest seats available and slip him $20. I have been to 20 games this year and he has gotten me right behind home every single game.

Anonymous said...

If you were as big a fas as you claim, you'd already have playoff tickets. Anyone who bought at least a 20 game ticket plan this year got first dibs. 20 games may sound expensive, but I bought a seat in the bleachers so my whole package only cost me $180. Thats 9 bucks a game.

beefshower said...

Thank You Anonymous, I am a big "fas" however I am 22 and attending law school which is not exactly the cheapest endeavor between the $15,000+ tuition, rent, books, etc. And with a current income of $0 I found it impossible to afford not only the 180 bucks for a mini season game plan, but the extra $500 to purchase a whole playoff package. I'm a victim of circumstance, also I don't see how my post could have offended you unless you were a small child or a total pussy whipped bitch of a boyfriend.

Anonymous said...

Good to see you on Deadspin.com again you f...ing lawyer.

Screw Anonymous. That guy is a bandwagon jumper. Guaranteed he bought the 20 game package in July. And you just know he is selling the tickets on eBay right now.

I was in your financial stuation 10 years ago -- don't worry, the Tigers will be in the playoffs again VERY soon.

beefshower said...

Thanks for the kind words and advice rudy, it's always good to hear from somebody who also suffered through law school.

It was a complete oversight on my part in leaving out the Blackberry toting corporate guys. I'm sure your spot on about Anonymous being a bandwagoner who took adavantage of the ticket offer in midseason.

I'll also make sure to keep a look out for Bill when I go to Comerica in the future and take advantage of those corporate bastards.

I also agree that this Tigers team is going to be good for a long time and as soon as I get a job and pay off my student loans, (which may take forever,) I'll be buying season/playoff tickets every year and they'll be better then bleacher seats.

Thanks to everyone else who visited the site today via Deadspin and left comments, and come back !!!!

Yoshi Etcetera said...

Grateful for shharing this