Homerun

I take back what I wrote earlier about baseball games. They can be fun and exciting. But, I found out that it's a whole other ball game sitting in the lower deck and that food discrimination abounds.

Colin and I went to an A's game last night at the Coliseum thanks to his friend Alex and Alex's free tickets. It was exciting. The A's scored four runs in the first couple of innings and Barry Zito was pitching a no-hitter up until the seventh. I found myself cheering and clapping and chanting "Zi-to! Zi-to!" in between bites of ice cream sandwich and wanting the A's to win. We had great seats, 23 rows behind homebase, where I was able to see the pitches being thrown, the faces of the players, and the chub on the Texas team. And, Colin's friend Ben caught the first foul ball of the game. It was awesome.

But as exciting as the game was, I was overwhelmed by the food madness that welcomed us on our way to our seats. I had never been to the lower deck before. I'm used to sitting up at the top in my $2 seats where the only thing I can see on the field are flecks of white pretending to be players. Up at the top deck, I waited and waited for Ice Cream Sandwich Man to come around, I dreamed of churros and believed them not to exist in Baseball Land, I yearned for beer that wasn't Miller Light.

It's a whole other world on the lower deck. It seemed like a mile of food stands stretched before us. And, it just wasn't your usual hot dog fare. There were Bratwurts, fish and chips, pizza, chicken strips, burritos, nachos, who knows what else. And the beer was decent, good even: Sierra Nevada, Guinness, Harp. I ached for nachos and got a huge cardboard container of them smothered in cheese, drizzled with sour cream from a plastic squeeze bottle, topped with chicken, with a side of jalepeno peppers. Colin had a super huge hot dog and a pretzel. And we both had Sierra Nevadas. We picked at the chicken as we walked and it was amazingly good for baseball food; really tender and flavorful.

We made it to our seats with food and beer still in our hands and I was even more amazed. So many men in green neon shirts carrying food, just for us. Round Table on one man. Drumsticks on another. There were so many of them and they came by fast. I gasped and probably clutched Colin's arm when I saw Churro Man. We both wondered if we could stuff half a churro into our bodies after all the junk we had already put into our mouths. We decided it was better to pass on the churros. But, I couldn't pass on Ice Cream Sandwich Man. I was still wanting one since the last time I went to the game just a few weeks ago. I had to fulfill that dream. I did and it was good, sweet and cold with the cookie seeming just a bit undercooked but marvelous.

But it all got me thinking about those people up at the top deck with no Churro Man, no Ice Cream Sandwich Man, and all that bad beer. Did they know what they were missing? And, did the people in the lower deck realize how privileged they were? With a couple more sips of my beer and a couple more bites of my ice cream sandwich I forgot about my socialist ideals, all the Marx I read, and the people up at the top, and happily chanted "Zi-to! Zi-to!" and cheered the A's on. Go A's!