Opening Day AKA me going off on Cornhole

Ahhhh opening day, watching the first pitch, hearing that first crack of the bat and more often than not watching the Indians lose.  Honestly it is so much more than that.  It's a culture all to itself.  It's tradition.  It's the start of real spring and the Summer is just around the corner.  Baseball takes me back so many years and countless opening days.  I remember my mom and dad taking me to ball games as kids at the old Municipal Stadium.  The giant Chief Wahoo beckoning you in crouched in his batting stance off the Shoreway.  The smell of hot dogs wafting through the air mixed in with fresh roasted peanuts.  I remember the days when the Tribe had Buddy Bell, Super Joe Charboneau, and Phil Niekro when he was 800 years old.  Baseball conjures up all these thoughts and to risk sounding like that ass hat Bob Costas, or a John fucking Fogerty song (post-CCR) I can leave it at that.  

I continued on the tradition for many years after going to opening day for many years.  Opening day has change from the romanticized version I recall.  It went from this huge family deal of calling the kids off from school, oiling up the glove the night before in hopes of catching that foul ball or illusive Tribe homer to more or less another Cleveland drunk-fest.  Don't get me wrong I saw a lot of dads with their kids but I also saw a lot of drunks stumbling down East 9th street.  Maybe as a kid I don't remember the drunk 20 to 30-something crowd.  I mean shit, there was 10 cent beer night in '74 but I was far too young to remember that.  It just seemed every bar within a 2 mile radius around Progressive field was loaded to beyond capacity.  I think it is great for the local bar business, but holy shit man.  There are two viable explanations for this.  The first is I am turning into an old square and the second is Cleveland has a drinking problem.  

So, I head down the road after parking for $30.  Yeah $30 dollars.  Hard to swallow when the 2 tickets I purchased were less than that.  First stop was at Forti's.  It was packed beers were $2.50 for domestics.  The stereo was blasting rock anthems from all of your 80's favorites.  Why for the love of God this is the soundtrack of Cleveland I will never fucking understand.  I hated that hair metal shit back in the 80's and I cringe when I hear people singing Bon Jovi at the top of their lungs.  I don't care if Johnny worked on the docks or at a fortune 500 company, that song still sucks.  I still like Forti's and think it is the best option for a cocktail before a sporting event.  However after a few minutes I felt trapped by the huge crowd of 80's loving super fans.  We went on down the road and I was amazed at the amount of bodies herded in like cattle in these little metal pens grazing on cheap domestic bottle specials.  All the way on down there they were, a sea of red, white and blue jerseys.  It would be enough to make you feel patriotic until you realize it's just a bunch of various Indians gear bobbing their head and singing along to 80's metal.  It was as if they all had the same horrendous DJ's all the way down the road. 

After having just about enough of that we walked into the sea of bodies to enter in at Gate C.  Bob Feller beckoning us in with arms outstretched throwing his fast ball directly into the heavens if not Lake Erie.  Obviously these folks never went to catholic school to understand how a single file line works.  The line moved slowly with drunk girls not understanding the concept of a purse check.  As you know they are the most likely to smuggle in contraband into a MLB game.  I wonder what they look in the purses for at times.  It's not bombs I am sure, probably the hidden flask or something equally as deadly.  After a few short minutes we were greeted to the ballpark with our magnet schedule and a smile from the friendly yellow jacketed staff.  Our mission to get in grab a beer and watch some Cleveland Indians baseball from the Batter's Eye Bar out in center field.  I loved coming out there the last couple years.  Nice view of the field and a laid back atmosphere.  Well, that changed too.

Enter the "Rigid Job Site" brought to you by the nonchalantly sexually named Rigid Tool Company.  Oh...I get it.  Rigid Tool, like a cock.  That's funny.  Well, screw it right?  They just changed the name.  It will be fine.  Well, no it wasn't fine.  It was horrible.  They took away the tables and made it standing room only.  The service at the bar itself?  It sucked.  I kept joking I was in the cold corner.  You would have sworn I was invisible.  Yes, I get it they are busy but seriously they were terrible.  A third I blame on them, another third I blame on the fact they serve mixed drinks and the last third I blame on the assholes that are ordering the mixed drinks at a baseball game.  What would Babe Ruth do if he were to see the center field bar selling frozen daiquiri's?  Well beside drink like 20 of them that is?  He would smack the shit out of them I am guessing.  

Beer = baseball, baseball = beer not some fancy drink with an umbrella in it.  Take that bullshit back down to West 6th Street.  So after being ignored enough to ruin my self esteem I ventured down to tackle a beer vendor in the concourse.  He had two buttons on, one said $4.50 the other $7.75.  I figured $7.75 was for like a Heineken or something.  Nope, $4.50 was for a little bag of peanuts.  It was $7.75 for a bottle of beer, Bud, Bud Lite or MGD.  Holy shit, are you kidding me?  I just bought a 12 pack for the price of one beer.  I could have had a nice dinner for that price somewhere or a case of beer for that matter.  I am not so out of it I don't know they jack up the beer prices at the stadium but hey dip shits why is attendance down besides the team roster looks like something out of the flick Major League?  Because it is no longer an option for a family to take the kids to the game and not have to take out a 2nd mortgage on the house to do it.

I still haven't gotten to the thing that set me off the most of all at the ballpark; corn hole.  Yes the game that rivals beer pong, quarters, golf, poker as the biggest cliche in drinking games.  And let me tell you Progressive Field indeed did have corn hole!  You know where it was?  Right at the Rigid Tool bar.  Right off to the side where people used to watch the game and sit at the tables that are no longer there or lean against the railing to watch.  Yes folks they had about 20 feet plus of space sectioned off for 4 people to play corn hole.  Not just people mind you but uber corn hole assholes fighting about the score, getting in the way and taking up a huge 20 foot section where people should be watching the game.  God forbid if you walked into their corn hole playing field or you would get the evil eye.  I cannot tell you how close I actually came to grabbing one of the bean bags mid air to shove it up their collective asses.  This single thing alone could have been the most asinine things I have seen to date at a sporting event.  This jackass game belongs in backyards and tailgate parties not in the way of baseball fans trying to watch a game at a packed house on opening day.

So to say some of the mystique of opening day in Cleveland is gone is kind of an understatement.  It doesn't change my love of the sport or of my cherished Indians.  Before all the games used to be on television my dad would always have them on the radio, just like his mother in law, my grandmother did.  The Indians are the baseball tradition here in my family and many of the hearts and minds of us Cleveland folk.  The corporate folks in Indians-land can keep jacking up prices, naming a bar after a penis, and putting corn hole boards in the middle of center field for all I care.  Because, you see, none of that shit matters when you have memories of what it used to be like.  Listening to the ball game on the radio or the '90's Indians road to the World Series for me will always be better than the memories created on opening day 2010.