More on Baseball...

My wife got me a great Father's Day present...a new Carl Crawford jersey, and tickets for the entire family to see the very competitive and entertaining Rays host the best record in baseball, steeped in tradition, huge national fan base, Chicago Cubs...this event took place last night.

First, let me say...I get that I-75 connects the mid-west to Florida...and the natural resevoir for folks in Chicago, who want something a little more mild climate-wise, is to end up in Tampa-St. Pete, but...for real...there were every bit as many Cubs fans there as Rays fans.

Now, about Cub fan...I've been around obnoxious fans before (read Gator fan here), but Cub fan took this to a whole new level. Everything about there team was great, and oh, wait till you see what happens here. For example...
- From the guy behind me..."Dempster is 8-2 and for sure going to go 9-2 tonight...you just don't know how good he is, and man is he hot right now." (By the 4th inning we were averaging 2 hits per inning, Cliff Floyd took him deep in the 2nd, and in the 4th we our 2nd string left fielder struck out looking with bases loaded)
- Then when the bull pen came in..."Oh man, you just wait, our bull pen is so good, no one hits our bull pen." (First pitch, seriously, first pitch...yard...2-0 Rays).

It was like that all night.

So, you can only imagine, after Rays fan has to listen to a thousand versions of this through 5 innings, by the 8th when its 3-1 Rays, and all Cubs fans are beginning to exit, and Ray fan is fairly well liquored up...it got ugly...real ugly.

My 16 year old leans in to me and says..."I could go see 100 "R" rated movies and still not catch up to what I heard tonight." I think she's lobbying for us to relax our standards...sorry sweetheart.

I know it sounds rough, but we had a GREAT time. We had great conversation to and from the game, the game was awesome...and I sat next to the most colorful, talkative, knowledgable Rays fan...who held his own in the trash talking category himself...just so you get the picture...
- Imagine Matt Wolfsburger, but he's 5-10, 290 and red headed.
- Every time a pretty girl walked by, he'd say "hold on", stand up and begin to clap, then look at me and say, "what, that aint funny". The usher began laughing by the 6th at this act.
- He picked out this young kid in front of us in a Cubs jersey and began calling him Bartman in the 2nd, so every 5-10 mintutes, he'd yell out..."That's ok Bartman, your welcome here in Tampa, we got your back."
- He worked the lack of championship angle throughout the night...things like..."Don't the White Sox have like two more championships than you guys"...and, "Jordan cheated...had it not been for pushing off, Chicago's drought would be 50+ years...oh yeah, I forgot the White Sox won two."
- And after we went deep on their first releiver (first pitch), he starts calling for Rex Grossman..."he's got a great arm, right".
- The classic of the night was there was this one woman, looked like a Barbie Doll, blond, perfect figure, enhanced, that would walk by every 2-3 innings. My guy next to me gave her the standing O, like usual, then, only for her, would praise Dr. Dachia very loudly (Dr. Dachia is a well know plastic surgeon on the radio here)...so the picture is...standing O, sit down, and "God Bless Dr. Dachia...what, that aint funny"...and my 16 year old loosing it every moment on the other side of me.

What a tremendous evening. Happy Fathers day to me.