LAST EDITED ON 08-16-13 AT 10:36 AM (EST)I went to a minor-league baseball game last night.
It was sort of a 'why not?' thing. I'd won the ticket in, appropriately, an extremely minor charity raffle. It felt as if there would be worse ways to spend an evening. I can generally get into a minor-league park without getting the fisheye from the ticket-takers and being challenged to sign a pack of 'I will not run onto the field and kiss anyone' affidavit forms in triplicate. There was supposed to be a fireworks display following the game, weather permitting. Attending that kind of game always stands the chance of catching someone on their way up -- or spotting an old name on the way down. Sometimes you get an old name on the way back up again: I thought I vaguely recognized one team's manager and it turned out to be a former player.
A few things happened.
The crowd wasn't all that large: the two-tier park didn't even come close to full. Some sections were more crowded than others, but mine had some significant empty spots. I was just about alone on my seat row, although I wound up with a family behind me and a group of what I'm guessing was camp outing kids directly ahead. (I was lucky not to be near the left foul pole: that's where the fraternity wound up. Always fun when the drinking starts three hours before the actual game.)
The reason for my relative isolation became apparent immediately. My charity raffle seat had been given away because no sane person would have purchased it. Some parks have obstructed view seats. I had a Blasted Eardrum Section. My seat was on a direct angle with the primary speaker for that entire side of the stadium. Every time someone made an announcement, I heard it. If the artificial clapping tried to get the crowd going, the first thing it slammed hands against was my right ear. All the charge noises and rally bugles and standard song exerts heard at a ballpark? Are still echoing in my head this morning. And the ushers were on Get Closer To The Field And We'll Kill You patrol -- plus sneaking isn't exactly my strong suit to begin with.
But my row was fairly empty. And while going into the field boxes might have been prohibited, I thought sliding over away from the sonic blast might have been an overlooked fringe crime. The section was surely as full as it was going to get, and the park would rather have me a little out of place than in court suing over hearing loss, right? So in between inning halves for the second, I moved.
In the bottom of the second, the very first foul ball hit slammed into the seat I had originally been occupying before rebounding several rows away, ultimately resulting in a small-scale scrum between a pack of second-graders. There were a few survivors.
My first reaction? Dejection. I have never been that close to getting a foul ball. If I'd just put up with the noise and stayed in my assigned seat...
Then I thought about how fast it had been moving.
This was followed by considering where, should I have been in the seat, the thing would have hit me.
I spent the rest of the inning in an unbreakable cringe.
It got worse during the break.
When you think minor-league park, the first word which should come to mind is 'cheap' (unless you're thinking about the food, in which case, it only applies to the quality). The players are underpaid. Much of the staff is interns who get no salary at all. And the between-innings entertainment is about as low-cost as it gets.
What happens between innings? Dizzy bat race: bend over, put your forehead on a bat handle, spin your body around ten times, then try to find home plate. Catch balls in giant clown pants. Attendees win the right to sit in recliners near home plate. Cheer loudly enough for a bouncing dot on the screen and ten cheap frisbees (so cheap as to have no center) may be thrown into your section. You will not win a mini-tablet, but ten even cheaper T-shirts will be thrown into the crowd after you fail! And get fifteen percent off aluminum siding just for playing!
Everything is sponsored. If there's a sack race (and there was), a local insurance agency stands by to ignore the injuries. The on-deck circle had an owner, and that was a sports injury clinic which was actually built into the far side of the ballpark. (Saves on gas, I guess.) Cup holders have beautician stickers. Most of the game was brought to the spectators courtesy of a toxic waste cleanup business and if you don't see the irony, neither did they.
First pitch honors? About six of them. Who's having a birthday? Can we honor a veteran? Local kids sing the anthem? No, they'll sing something before the anthem and then we'll get the main number from somebody else! By the way, we have our own team theme song! Here it is! And here it is again at twice the volume! Have you lost your mind yet? No? We'll take care of that, because here comes #3 through #8!
There is never a moment to reflect. There's barely time to stretch. In fact, the quietest time comes during the actual game...
But this night was extra-special. This game had entertainment which was just a little higher-end, and I don't mean the fireworks. We got performers.
We had -- the Zooperstars.
End of the second. Waiting to see which never-fresh minor league travesty will be asking for our attention during the break. I was guessing trivia contest, or the two-minute sanity breaker where a recording of someone shouting the city name asks people to scream the team's right after. Over and over. Forever.
What I got was a rhino in an old-fashioned Astros uniform.
Also a monkey. Wearing a Yankees cap.
Nolan Rhino and Monkey Mantle.
I could make this up. But why?
The costumes looked inflatable, as if there were people standing inside giant balloons. The performers certainly moved as if helium was involved. I couldn't find any eye holes. There was a chance they were seeing out of the buttocks, because those flexed at the crowd. Repeatedly. For some reason, it was essential to those characters that, in the middle of their dance routine, they move rubber buttocks. As a unit. Repeatedly. In fact, that was most of the routine. Put it on Fox and they'd be in fifth place right now.
I watched it. I wished for affidavits. We Solemnly Swear We Shall Not Flash Artificial Rubber Monkey Butt. Apparently someone missed a retroactively obvious form.
On the next inning break, we got Tim Tebull.
College uniform. Very short arms. Mostly ran around falling on several ballplayers. I heard someone in another section yelling about how this had to be the real thing because he couldn't throw a pass either.
Later on, there was Peyton Manatee and Bear Bonds. Bear Bonds didn't do so well. He fell to the ground about halfway through his routine and deflated on the spot. Several interns ran out to check on him, determined he had suffered from a sudden inflatable medical condition, and the bear did not move again until they gave him an emergency shot of The ClAir directly to the bear buttocks.
At the seventh-inning stretch, we were led in Take Me Out To The Ballgame by Harry Canary. He hung around the park for the rest of the game. He fell down a lot. The same person who had commented on Tebull noted that this was also clearly the real thing after too much time spent on Rush Street.
But before that, we had Roger Clamens.
You may be wondering what a giant clam in a Yankee uniform is supposed to do, other than demonstrating conclusive proof that steroids are just that bad for you.
He ran down to the visitor's dugout. One of the players began tossing balls to him. Now, as a clam, Roger was kind of lacking in some of the essentials. Like working arms. But he had an open mouth and a rather dextrous tongue, so he would wait until the ball stopped rolling, bend over, scoop it up, run back to the player, and tongue-flick it to him. The player repeated this a few times, then faked a throw. The clam ran for the imaginary ball, found nothing, and came back to stare at the player as only an inflatable giant clam in a Yankee uniform can.
Then he ate him.
It was at that point when I briefly became convinced this was the real thing.
The clam bent in. Scooped the player up in the giant mouth. The player fell in and vanished. There were -- movements -- within the costume. A batting helmet was spit out. Roger begin to make his way back towards the exit tunnel. Paused. Spit out a chest protector. A few more steps. Stirrups were regurgitated.
The crowd was -- oddly silent. There was no prepared reaction for this. Giant clams don't eat catchers every day.
I cringed deeper into my unyielding cheap plastic seat and wondered just how many future therapy sessions would include 'And I now realize that my fetish was born on the day when the bivalve had long pork for dinner'.
The clam paused again. Spit out a jersey. Then shoes. And then the entire player slid out, covered only in underwear which, under the Universal Laws Of Comedy, had a funny pattern on them.
He ran off the field. Wouldn't you?
So I went to a minor-league ballpark for a game and fireworks last night. And what I got -- was clam-on-human vore.
http://www.zooperstars.com/
http://www.zooperstars.com/zoo_characters.html
...why?
Note to Snidget: they'll be in Greensboro on the 29th.
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