America’s Favorite Pastime

Yesterday I went to a Giants baseball game. It was Little League Day, so there were about ten thousand young boys running wild in the stands. It was also free bat day, courtesy Bank of America.

I will pause while you digest this concept.

Do you know what happens when you hand an 8-year old boy a new bat, sit him behind the exposed heads of several adults, and ask him to sit patiently for four hours while nothing much happens on the big field in front of him? Do you think he fiddles with that bat?

Apparently Bank of America figured there was some theoretical amount of head injuries that would make the public forget that they lent a trillion of your dollars to hobos.

My memory of the afternoon goes something like this: “TREVOR, PUT DOWN THAT BAT! YOU ALREADY HIT THAT LADY ONCE! I SAID, PUT IT DOWN! I MEAN IT! I WILL NOT TELL YOU FOUR HUNDRED MORE TIMES!” This was followed by the sound of wood making solid contact with skull, cursing, repeat.

My wife took a solid blow to the shoulder. Later, one of the tykes kicked some guy’s beer out of the back seat holder, so we sat in a puddle of beer, while the sun cooked us. I was one pinch of salt from being a recipe.

I tried to use the restroom at the stadium. This is no place for the shy. Unlike most public men’s rooms, where there might be a small privacy shield between urinals, this place was designed to handle high volume, shoulder-to-shoulder peeing. I saw an opening where I could poke my penis between a bearded guy and a guy with a fanny pack, just over the left ear of a Little Leaguer, but before I could make my move, someone filled the slot. I decided I could wait another three or four hours.

Conditions were difficult, but at least the game was exciting well into the first half of the first inning when the Reds scored six runs and put it out of reach. Technically, there was still hope, since many of the Giants have batting averages that round to one hundred, and some are able to catch a fly ball nearly half the time. But yesterday was not their day. There were many boos from the stands. I felt bad for the players until I realized they couldn’t hear the boos over the screams of the bat victims.

I wish someone would invent a device that allowed you to watch sporting events from your home. I think that would be popular.

Comments

[Leora]

Try a hockey game, Scott. Not only is there more action, but there is no sun to burn you, and the only free stuff given out is relatively harmless, like rally towels or sparkly pompoms or Tshirts. The restroom experience is similar, however--must be a pro-sports mandate. Ditto for the food and beer.

God help us all if they ever give out hockey sticks, though! Especially in Montreal...

[Seano]

Maybe Bat Day could become Bat & Ball Day.
A company that produces red cordial could sponsor.

[Andy Coulter]

sports are best viewed on tv or from the skybox

[Matthew Kovich]

This was your straight-up funniest blog in a while.

Favorites included "I was one pinch of salt from being a recipe", the penis joke, and the TV joke.

p.s. I read about you in the Chicago Tribune. You're famous!!

[Rich]

In New York they give the bats away AFTER the game. You left coasters ain't too bright.

[Tanya G]

Hmmm, Brats with Bats. Sounds like a catchy reality TV show. It's sure to beat out "parking wars." I mean c'mon, toddlers are going to take a bat to stuff? Cool.

http://lostandloster.blogspot.com/

[kman]

Scott, next time you go to a game, guzzle down a couple of stadium draft beers, that'll solve your urinal shyness.

[Thomas Borawski]

I really hope that all of you people who are saying they have invented a device to watch sports, it's called television are being sarcastic just as Scott was being. If not, we have a worse problem than kids with baseball bats in a crowded stadium. We have you idiots driving cars on crowded streets.

[mike]

this is why I like minor league games .. its $5 for any seat, $1 for a hotdog (and you can bring your own food .. just not your own booze), and $3 for a beer.

the baseball is just as boring as the pros.

[jerry w.]

My favorite baseball special event is "Break-Wind" day.

It's not listed in advance, but it happens...

Hah, I said "it" happens.

Get it?

http://boskolives.wordpress.com/

[Dilbert fan]

My guess (comment #2) on the number of people who would say "It's called a television, dummy" was four. As of 5:58am the next day, I was right! (Io, Spoilsport, Pradeep, and Bleeding Obvious) I don't know how many of them were kidding.

[Noumenon]

Other people have probably sent you this link about free will already:

http://www.praxeology.net/blog/2008/04/18/good-science-bad-philosophy/

[FB]

Scott: "I wish someone would invent a device that allowed you to watch sporting events from your home. I think that would be popular."

DF said: "The device already exists. It is called a Television."

Haha! The 'I don't get it'-award 2008 goes to...
Just to make it complete: such a device will never work. When vast numbers of people can watch sporting events, it will attract the attention of advertisers. The clubs will make lots of money, so the players will demand their share. The enormous high salaries will spoil the players and diminish their passion for the game, making it no longer fun to watch.

[BigMal27]

I remember once going to a St. Paul Saints game -- much better, especially in the "No Wave Zone". You start the wave, you get booed. No one wants "the wave" anymore. In beautifully-dingy Energy Park near the Minnesota State Fairgrounds. Compare that to the sterile, empty, Teflon/fiberglass-roofed Metrodome in Minneapolis.

I thought "pastime" was more from "past time" (or "pasttime"), as in tradition -- an activity from a passed time.

[Jocuri]

Your sense of humor is verry good and makes me laugh. Keep up the good work.

[Glenn]

watching a baseball game is like watching a glacier move anyway, so the kids made it a memorable experience... you should be grateful for their efforts to give you more for your money.

[Jess]

or allow people to watch sporting event and if it gets boring have the kids run around on the field hitting the players as they play ball.

[Mike]

When I was a student many years ago, one of the drinks companies had a Pernod and Cider promotion night at the student union. Drinking is legal at 18 over in the UK guys -you are allowed to get drunk legally at the same age at which you can die for your country.

Anyway, the rest-room was ankle deep in vomit by the end of the night. So was most people's bedrooms. I didn't mean to suggest that a bunch of teenagers are mature enough to deal with cut-price Pernod and Cider, or that it is wise to give it to them. Just because it's legal doesn't make it a good idea...

[Emma]

You are a cynic, Scott. :)

[BleedingObvious]

>I wish someone would invent a device that allowed you to watch sporting events from your home. I think that would be popular.

They have you idiot! It's called the TV!

[Paul McGuire]

"One pinch of salt away from being a recipe" - simply brilliant!

[I like Wally]

You think the urinals are bad there. If you go to any Syracuse University sporting events in the Carrier Dome (named after the air conditioning company but the dome is not air conditioned) you don't even get urinals. Instead they have troughs. Talk about a lack of privacy. Your standing elbow to elbow with other guys on either side of you with their junk hanging out. Makes me not want to drink any beverages at the game which is hard to do on warm days with no AC.

[simon]

pmsl ... 10/10 scott

[paul]

simple. combine bat day with taser day.

[Bertram]

I wish someone would invent a device that would make sporting events unneccessary. I think that would be popular. It would save lots of energy, security staff and unearned pride of fans. Let's start with those Olympic Games.

[Marklar]

Will Dilbert wake up from a dream in the next strip or are the aliens going to catch a cold?

[Kevin Kunreuther]

I hate going to stadium games nowadays because you're not allowed to bring your own food and drinks. Up until '87, I enjoyed the trouble of bringing an ice chest or a picnic basket of hero sandwiches to Texas Stadium to watch the Dallas Cowboys suck on the field. I'm not a cheapskate by any definition, but frankly, I'd rather be eating and drinking food I know I'm gonna' enjoy and eat instead of scarfing down some overpriced mystery meat miasma served with warm lifeless beer cups priced by the likes of OPEC or ExxonMObil.

Unless you write a blog looking for comedic inspiration in anarchy or conflict, check your baseball stadium's website for any "special" days or premiums being handed out (Best one ever - Texas Rangers handed out free unbelievably sturdy umbrellas, then a freak thunderstorm broke out during the fifth inning, delaying the game forty five minutes. Not one umbrella folded up or got tangled up by the gale force winds.).

[wrench]

It's been calculated and timed that the ball is in play 6% of the time during a baseball game. Why someone would pay to watch a bunch of steroid pumped overpaid white guys stand around for 94% of 3+ hours is way beyond my comprehension. I can't stand it while sitting on my couch.

[merle]

hey Nate from Cleveland. i'm pretty sure that is was nickle ($.05 beer) and the Indians did have to forfeit the game like in the seventh inning.

[Scott Nelson]

When is Free Lawn Dart Day?!? I want to book my ticket now!

(And that suit of armor at the costume shop...)

[Dave]

Dear God man. The game was played in 2 hours and 34 minutes according to the box score -- that is lightspeed for baseball. Suck it up.

[Kurt Christie]

Why don't they give out the bats upon leaving the stadium rather than upon entering?

[Marionthel]

This isn't a comment about today's post. I would really love it if you would take up the ethical question: Since the living can now donate a kidney - why don't we all do that, and save many peoples' lives? (We each only need one kidney). I myself will not do it, and I feel guilty about it. Someone will die because I do not give. Would it really hurt me to undergo some discomfort to save a human life? How would *I* like it if someone wouldn't undergo the discomfort of giving a kidney, and I knew I would die as a result? And, if we *should* do that (ethically speaking), where does it end? Don't we have an obligation to save starving people? People who need medical care (like vaccinations?)

[Marionthel]

This isn't a comment about today's post. I would really love it if you would take up the ethical question: Since the living can now donate a kidney - why don't we all do that, and save many peoples' lives? (We each only need one kidney). I myself will not do it, and I feel guilty about it. Someone will die because I do not give. Would it really hurt me to undergo some discomfort to save a human life? How would *I* like it if someone wouldn't undergo the discomfort of giving a kidney, and I knew I would die as a result? And, if we *should* do that (ethically speaking), where does it end? Don't we have an obligation to save starving people? People who need medical care (like vaccinations?)

[tubaguy]

You neglected to mention the cacaphony of 10,000 kids pounding on the stadium. I LOVED bat night as a kid.

[Kitten]

To ND:

"Pass time" and "pastime" don't have exactly the same meaning. The first is a verb coupled with a noun, which you could use as an instruction or in your sentence "I decided to pass time at the office". The word "pastime", which is a noun, cannot be substituted in that sentence instead of "pass time", because then the clause would have no verb. You can't say "I decided to pastime". Well, you can, but it wouldn't make sense.

So although the phrase "pass time" has led to the use of "pastime" as a noun, one is not a contraction of the other. However, the human brain is an amazing place. We are all intelligent enough to cope with different spellings of similar sounding words or phrases.

Hope that's answered your question. :)

[burt]

you need to stick with posts like this, mr adams. you are not a philosopher

burt trub

[bridget in oregon]

Geesh... you think they'd hand out the bats to the kids as they LEFT the game. It's basic MOM-101. I mean, how hard is that to figure out after the first Bat Day gone wrong? Apparently very hard indeed.

[Diana W]

While I thoroughly enjoyed your incredibly bad choice of weekend entertainment, I'm shocked that you didn't write something about the lead story on the News of the Weird (http://www.newsoftheweird.com/archive/index.html). It could put a whole new spin on the game Operation. You get a 3D model, tweezers and a flashlight...

[dipy911]

Bat night --- LOL :)

Etymology: LME passe tyme, transl. of Fr passe-temps

Blame the French. Not innocent contractions. Do schools not teach internet searching any more?

Yet more proof that Americans are all accepting of new words into the American English language.

PS. I find it isn't comfortable to watch sporting events from my "Coach". His shoulders are too bony and he's always yelling at someone. I prefer a love seat.

[KnightRider]

Scott,
You should patent that idea about the device that allows you to watch sporting events from home, I'm sure the idea would sell.
On another subject, I LOVE your new site. I work for a software company and I deal all day with people who are like, "I liked it the old way", or, "Why did you change that? Who needs efficiency and convenience!?" So, any whiners about your site are just afraid of change. Yeah, all the Flash on the site took me about 5 minutes to get used to, but once you figure out where things are, it's really cool.
Don't let the uber-techs get you down.

[Mark Thorson]

Hey, I thought today's blog
would be about the guy in
Austria who kept his daughter
in an underground bunker for
over 20 years, and had six
kids off her. (Seven, if you
count the one that died.)

The entrance to the bunker was
through a password-controlled
electronic lock for a steel
door in a concrete frame he
built himself. Wow! You'd
like one of those, huh? You
should include that in your
designs for your ideal house.

And -- get this -- he lived
upstairs with his wife and
three of his children/grand-
children. The wife says she
had no knowledge of what was
going on downstairs. Where
do you find a wife that dumb?

Three of the kids/grandkids
lived a more-or-less normal
life upstairs, while the other
three lived downstairs with
mom. His wife was given the
story that the daughter had
joined a religious cult, and
on three occasions had left a
child on their doorstep.

This follows closely on
another case of long-term
imprisonment in Austria, that
one being a girl who was
kidnapped at the age of 11 and
kept in an underground bunker
for more than 10 years before
she got her chance to escape.

[D. Mented]

RTFL...Not normally a sports fan, myself, nor that much into unprovoked violence, but still, I think I might have liked watching that one.I guess the reason they don't show the action in the stands on television is so you'll go to the game to see it.
Now, somebody is going to find out the name and address of the genius who decided to give out the bats as fans *enter* the stadium (rather than as they leave) and post it on the internet, so anybody who really liked the action can go give HIM a free bat...
D. Mented

[Skeptical Fanboy]

Scott,

You clearly made a number of mistakes. Every team publishes its list of promotional themes well in advance of game day. If your goal was to avoid being clobbered by 8-year-olds wielding clubs, you could just as easily have picked a day when such a confluence was unlikely to occur. Perhaps Gout Sufferers Day meets First-Ten-Thousand-Fans-Get-Oven-Mitts or something along those lines.

Second, you went to an afternoon game on a warm day. Given your self-described near-albinoness, that seems a poor choice.

If you really wanted to avoid the crush of humanity in the restrooms, you probably could have chosen a Tuesday night game, or better yet, gotten someone with whom you have even a remote business connection to put you and your family up in one of the many luxury suites at the stadium.

I buy cheap tickets in the upper deck to about a game a month during the season in my home market, and I enjoy those games immensely. But I also have connections that get me (and 11 of my friends and family) tickets to a suite in the stadium for a few games every year.

When I want to go to the game with my buddy, drink beers, eat hot dogs, be flatulent, and talk guy stuff, I go to the upper deck seats. When I want to enjoy the outing with my wife and kids (and our parents and siblings), we go to the suite. There's no comparison.

One final note: In baseball, the worst teams lose about 100 out of 162 games, which means they still win almost 40% of their games. The best teams win about 100 out of 162 games, which means they still lose nearly 40% of their games. The point I'm making is that even when the best team in the major leagues plays the worst team in the major leagues, the worst team will still win about 3 or 4 out of 10 of those games. This means that one should never get too wrapped up in the outcome of any one regular-season game. Just go to the game with the expectation that you're going to kill 3-4 hours and you just might see something truly memorable, such as a no-hitter, an inside-the-park home run, a bases-clearing triple, a left fielder on the mound, or a triple play.

The odds are against you seeing anything quite so memorable in any one game. But if you go to a couple of dozen games over the course of a few years, you're virtually guaranteed that something truly memorable will happen in at least a few of them.

By the way, never leave a blowout early. I did that once and heard on the radio as I was driving away that the home team's center fielder was pitching. I still kick myself to this day.

[Ben Adler]

And if they *did* invent a device for viewing games from home, do you think they'd mail us the bats?

[RPK]

Teams usually publicize these promotional events in advance. You could have figured that a bunch of kids with bats would not make for the most enjoyable day at the ballpark.

They play 81 home games per year, choose your games wisely.

[Ari]

re Slap's: "Baseball is a sport in which people sit in boredom for hours at a time in the hopes that they will see 6 seconds of exciting action."

I call this sport "Dating".

Hours of boredom and my team rarely gets to 2nd base.

[Simon]

It wouldn't work, and somebody's already doing it.

[T]

You ever hear of "Nickel Beer Night" or "Disco Demolition Night" or "Ball Day at Dodger Stadium"? (http://www.usatoday.com/sports/2004-11-20-sports-incidents_x.htm and http://www.laalmanac.com/sports/sp09.htm) These are classic fan days. :) Makes you want to take a day off of work and head out to the ol' ballpark with a group of your buddies to soak in the sun and down a few beers.

[Al]

Dad: (setting the tone) Look, Johnny. It's a brand new toy. Now, there are two things we can use this brand new toy for. It can be a brand new bat for Johnny, or it can be a brand new paddle for Daddy if Johnny doesn't behave.

Johnny: (cowering in corner) Daddy, can you just hold the bat for me so I don't get in trouble?

Problem solved.

[olie]

I think that one of the main problems with America is the dearth of opportunities one has to use this sentence: "I saw an opening where I could poke my penis between a bearded guy and a guy with a fanny pack, just over the left ear of a Little Leaguer."

Certainly this is an area where the Japanese are kicking our collective ass, and we need to put some good ol' American ingenuity into closing that gap!

(So to speak...)

[Fuzznsmoo]

I went to a Giants game when I was ten or so. I've never been tempted to go back. I've never been to any professional event that wasn't better watched on TV, even one near and dear to your heart, tennis.

[Dan]

Several sports writers have taken stopwatches to baseball games, timing the actual 'action': starting the timer for each pitch, stopping it in between, but letting it run for each play. The total time averaged less than 15 minutes - less than 10 minutes in 1956!.

Nowadays that works out to about $3.00/ minute. Phone sex is cheaper, more satisfying, and cleaner. Plus, you don't have to involve 40,000 other people.

Cite: http://ask.yahoo.com/20060810.html

[A Geek Talks About Money]

I just went to the Pirates-Phillies game yesterday, maybe the third baseball game I have been to in my life. I believe the main outcome of me spending my ten bucks was a slight increase in my chance of skin cancer from sitting out in the sun all day.

On the plus side, I had a fun time trying to explain to the concession lady that a soda "without ice" should not have ice in it. This took much longer than you would expect.

[Michael]

The bats were given out in hopes that the little kids would cause enough head injuries that the public would forget about our "ace" pitcher Barry Zito and the $126 million he's being paid to drag down our team.

I was at the game, too, but unfortunately there weren't any Little Leaguers with reach of my skull during the game.

[DrHyde]

This is a great post !... being from a non-baseball-playing nation, part of the stuff made faint sense .. but the rest of it was hilarious !

[Biff]

Great post. (Shout out to Dilbert fan and AC! Wooo!)

[the_muteKi]

I wonder if there were any stalls available for use at the stadium? Usually when a bathroom is super-crowded there will be several people using the stalls so that they don't have to wait. Obviously there's plenty of privacy and if several other people are doing it, nobody would give it a second thought. If nobody else is doing it, clearly they are either quite drunk or got hit on the head one too many times with that bat, as there's no real reason to not use those extra stalls in the bathroom.
Then again, I was having a discussion on how so many people here have trouble coming up with efficient ways to collect papers and such. Everyone was queued up to turn in evaluation forms, and one guy just runs along the line, picks up everyone's pages, and turns them in. Everyone else ends up thinking, "Why didn't we do that sooner?"

[Tim]

On Saturday, we went to the Tampa Bay/Red Sox game. It was Cowbell Night, also known as Migraine Night. Full details here: http://without-warning.blogspot.com/2008/04/cowbell-night.html

[Eric M]

Good, you are back to being funny rather than political.

Thanks.

And Go cubs Go.

[Bloodboiler]

I salute your courage to make an indirect pedophilia joke at the time when worst incest case since Egyptian pharaos is in the news. I am also shocked to hear that such shoulder to shoulder peeing facilities are still allowed in always chaste US. Could it be that those who guard children from all thing naughty have never visited men's rooms that have high capacity urinals?

[mr tom]

Saw a wonderful picture of two nasty little kids recently.

The caption went something like this:

"Smoking

When cancer can sometimes be the cure and not the problem."

Link here: http://www.ratemyeverything.net/post/7543/Smoking.aspx

I think this also applies to the kids with the baseball bats.

And it would help the environment.

[DF]

I went to a major league game once, it was a few years ago, and I really did enjoy paying $20 for a hot dog and pop. It was a good game, but I don't think that I would do it again, once is enough. I remember thinking that I could get just as much enjoyment sitting at home with my friends watching the game. On the day I went, they had a promotion that if the home team hit 7 runs, everyone with a ticket could redeem it for a free slice of pizza, so in the end, it was worthwile.

[Pradeep]

The device already exists. It is called a Television.

[May]

I LOVE your sense of humor. This post cracked me up, which I really appreciate since I'm all under the weather today.

[ND]

Why is it spelled "pastime" as opposed to "passtime"? I mean, the word is obviously a conctraction of "pass time" as in "Rather than earning my pay, I decided to pass time at the office by reading the Dilbert Blog". Would it kill us to write that one extra "s"? Or, alternatively, if we *must* drop the second "s", shouldn't we have to substitute an apostrophe for the missing letter, such as in the word "shouldn't" ("should not")? Then it would be "America's Favorite Pas'time". I'm just sayin'.

[John]

I remember going to bat night as an eight year old. The stadium had metal bleachers in the outfield. Put 10,000 bats into metal seats, and you get quite a loud noise. Combine the noise, free full size wooden bats, and adults that had one too many, and it was quite an entertaining night. Everyone went home with at least a headache.

[Kate A.]

Don't be givin' our elected officials any ideas. (I can just see it: Bat Day at poling places...)

[Joe McConnell]

The fast website should receive an award. It's the best website I've seen in quite a while.

[mason]

Scott,

Your punchline today was vaguely familiar: http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/09/us-open-update.html

quote: Anyway, I wish someone would just invent some sort of device that would display sporting events while you sat on your own couch. I think it would catch on.

ciao!

[LA Clay]

I LOVE Baseball! Well as long as I am AT the game. Baseball on TV is boring. You don't get all of the in stand excitement, especially at Yankee games. They never seem to show fights in the stands on TV, unless you awatch a soccer (football) match.

[Nate]

Couldn't be worse than the $.25 beer day they had in Cleveland some years back. I'm pretty sure that game set the record on number of drunken fans running out on the field and if memory serves correctly, they had to call the game and the Indians had to forfeit.

[Leslie]

This is where spanking comes in handy.

[Godilla]

I think it's important to understand that I am unable to watch spectator's sports… I'll play ball a bit, though. :)

[Jim]

Haven't been in a while but I enjoyed the irony of going through the post 9/11 security, emptying handbags and packs, removing nail files and pocket knives to ensure the safety of the event only to be give a baseball bat....

[friskybeaver]

Even if you could find such a device, no matter how big it was or how high it's definition, it still isn't the same as being there. I love watching sports in person, just not baseball because baseball sucks. I prefer to stick with hockey, the coolest game on earth. Football is good to.

[Aaron]

This may be your best post ever.

[Godilla]

I looked up dil, Scott. :) Look what I got:

diligence Look up diligence at Dictionary.com
1340, from O.Fr. diligence "attention, care," from L. diligentia "attentiveness, carefulness," from diligentem (nom. diligens) "attentive, assiduous, careful," originally prp. of diligere "value highly, love, choose," from dis- "apart" + legere "choose, gather" (see lecture). Sense evolved from "love" through "attentiveness" to "carefulness" to "steady effort."

dilly Look up dilly at Dictionary.com
"delightful or excellent person or thing" (often used ironically), 1935, from an earlier adj. (1909), perhaps from the first syllable of delightful or delicious, or related to the nursery word for "duck." Dilly was also slang for a stagecoach (1818), from Fr. carrosse de diligence. The noun is 1935. Dilly-dally is from 1741, a reduplication of dally.

antediluvian Look up antediluvian at Dictionary.com
"before Noah's flood," 1646, formed from L. ante- "before" (see ante) + diluvium "a flood" (see deluge). Coined by Eng. physician Sir Thomas Browne (1605-82).

armadillo Look up armadillo at Dictionary.com
1577, from Sp. armadillo, dim. of armado "armored," from L. armatus, pp. of armare "to arm" (see arm (2)).

predilection Look up predilection at Dictionary.com
1742, from Fr. prédilection (16c.), n. of action from M.L. prædilectus, pp. of prediligere "prefer before others," from L. præ- "before" + diligere "choose, love" (see diligent).

[TGButz]

This sort of what-were-you-thinking behavior is not limited to sporting events. A couple of years ago a cell phone company did a promotion handing out cell phones at a performance of the Cincinnati Opera. OF COURSE someone got a call in the middle of the second act and OF COURSE they chose to answer the call.

Did no one see that coming...?

[Gabe B.]

Bats to the dome, cooking in the sun, sitting in beer, and no place to pee is not a fun time. Especially since you were unfortunate enough to be watching the Giants play. Viva Los Doyers!

"Anyone want to bet on the number of posters who will comment, "It's called a television, dummy"? The over/under line is four."

I definitely want the over on that one!

[Joshua Ungerleider]

Great point about the restrooms, I never been to PacBell/AT&T/Verizon/Giants Stadium or whatever its called this week, but I think all places with urinals should have the shields between each. It's like if you have an inside cabin on a cruise, they put a curtain up over a non-existant window. It doesn't actually do anything, but you feel safer knowing its there.

[minister of silly walks]

The last time I went to a ball game on "Bat Day" (which, coincidentally was the last time I went to a ball game) we didn't really have a problem with the little "darlings" hitting anybody. We were sitting in steel bleachers, and all around us were kids with bats who wanted to grow up to become drummers. Kids with wood bats, steel bleachers (you get the picture). That was nearly ten years ago & I can still here the banging echoing in my head. I don't think I heard a single announcement that whole game.

[Alan]

I too was at the game yesterday. When I saw the scoreboard announcing it was little league day, I didn't realize they meant the Giants were going to field a little league team. That had to have been one of the worst-played ball games I've ever seen!

[AC]

Baseball is boring. It is even boring when I have played it.

I will take hockey any day.

[hf79]

Suggestion: Weekday day games. Much more relaxed almost no kids and still the great views that att has to offer.

[spoilsport engineer]

My condolances on your choice of home teams. The Giants, as well as the urinals, may look more attractive after a few beers. You're a rich guy, knock yourself out and splurge on a few.

If you pace yourself, you can miss nearly the whole game by going out every second inning for dogs, garlic fries, beer, a snow cone, bathroom, bathroom, etc.

Don't make the mistake I made and bring a good book. Man you get some dirty looks.

Try a minor leage game. They are more fun because the baseball isn't so good, which means people get hits, get on base, drop balls, etc. Plus there's no tv coverage (oh yeah, tv is that thing for watching baseball at home), so the game only takes 2 hours.

At the Everett Aquasox games, you can get your hair cut at a special chair built into the stands. The balls are delivered to the umpire by a pig wearing a backpack. They race R/C cars around the bases. They basically don't take themselves so seriously.

I actually love baseball, but it's an acquired taste. You need a crazy fan to drag you to games for a few years until your resistance wears down, or until your team has a good year. (It happens, really.)

[Slap D. Monkey]

Scott,
You hit the nail on the head with this post. And you hit it with a BOA-supplied Louisville Slugger. Baseball is a sport in which people sit in boredom for hours at a time in the hopes that they will see 6 seconds of exciting action. I get to see the exact same six seconds by watching the game highlights on the news. In order to keep bored people coming to over-priced games and paying $18 for hotdog and soda, they have gimmicks like your bats. So now parents have an incentive to come to the game with their kids . . . a free bat. So what does a bored kid do while holding a bat. Sit quietly and watch the game? Sit quietly and ponder the depths of the universe? Sit quietly and read the $43 program? OR Hit each other with the bats and feel no remorse for any bystanders/victims in their swing path?

You have enough Dil-cash laying around to seriously consider a private box at the stadium.

[Hurda]

Hey Scott this will never work!!! No one wants to sit at home a watch sport from their coach!!!

[dan]

Baseball is not my sport. Like golf, it can be fun to play, but to me both seem boring as hell to watch.

Although I do think watching a bunch of 8yr olds hitting people with bats on live TV could entertain me for a while!

Maybe you should check the footage of that game and see if the camera was mostly watching kids hit people in the stands. Your wife could already be famous (admittedly less famous then Trevor with his bat, but famous none-the-less)!

[Mr. Wampus]

I watch all my sporting events telepathically.

[Brian]

The ballpark experience, especially for kids, is way overrated. Next time try taking them to see your local AAA minor league team; the atmosphere at these games are completely kid-oriented and typically much more tolerable for adults.

[Jake]

One of your best posts ever.

[Real Live Girl]

Why do I hear Whitney Houston singing, "I believe that children are our future..." ??? Oh yeah, because then I can laugh even harder!

[io]

isn't that device called tv?

[Dilbert fan]

Anyone want to bet on the number of posters who will comment, "It's called a television, dummy"? The over/under line is four.

[Colton Mailes]

Yeah! Funny Scott Adams has returned!