Personal essays
At the ballpark with Uncle Shady
The Crushers
Maggie was visiting this past week and her Father’s Day gift to me was to treat us to a minor league baseball game.
The Lake Erie Crushers’ stadium is just off of Interstate-90 and every time I’ve driven by I’ve thought, “I should go to a game this year.”
Fortunately, they were playing at home while Maggie was in town and so we went to see them play the Slammers.
Not Slammers as in “slam the ball” - though there were five home runs between the two teams - Slammers as in prison. These were the Joliet Slammers named for the now closed, famous prison.
The Crushers are an independent team - not affiliated with any major league team - and I have no idea how they stay in business.
The day we went there were maybe forty cars in the lot. We came pretty close to game time and were able to park less than a one minute walk away from the gate.
We entered the stadium and found our section. There were only two people seated in it and our seats were right next to theirs. We shrugged and chose seats a few rows back. It really didn’t matter. By the end of the second inning maybe another ten people had sat in the same section and I don’t know if any of us were in our assigned seats.
It was an incredibly hot day and there was no shade in the stadium.
There didn’t seem to be any ushers, but there were concession stand workers, plenty of staff, and the “fun bunch”.
Bunch. Get it? Grapes.
The Crushers name refers to the grapes that are made into wine.
The mascot is Stomper. I think the mascot is a bear but I wasn’t sure. All I know is that it was a really hot day and I don’t know how someone puts on a mascot outfit and doesn’t pass out.
Maybe climate change had nothing to do with the balls flying out of the park - but someone should do a study.
A minor league game is all about fan service. The fun bunch kept the bus loads of kids happy and engaged during the game and the staff kept refilling big containers of ice water that they team provided for free for the fans. Just perfect on a hot day.
Free tickets
Two days later Maggie texted me from Kim’s mom’s house and asked me if I wanted Guardians tickets for Saturday.
We both did the “I’ll go if you’ll go” dance until she broke the impasse and said that we’d go.
The person who had tickets for us is very generous but there’s always something slightly shady about things.
He’s one of those, “I know a guy” people.
Let’s call him “Uncle Shady” so that we don’t use his real name. He’s not my uncle and he’s not shady - but it will do.
Anyway, Maggie forwarded me a text that described our free parking. We were to go to a garage that had a sign on it saying it was full and pull in anyway. We were to give the guy Uncle Shady’s name and they’d let us in to park.
I figured we’d stop there on our way back from visiting my mother and if we couldn’t get in, we’d have plenty of time to park on the street where we usually park.
I pulled into the garage and the off-duty policeman raised an eyebrow at me and said nothing.
I gave him Uncle Shady’s name and he picked up a clipboard, found the name, and told us to have a nice day.
I didn’t ask where we should park. Clearly someone on the clipboard would know.
Maggie looked at me and said, “see”. I was feeling a little better, but the next part made me a little nervous as well.
We were to go to the ballpark and use our tickets. The seats on the tickets didn’t exist. They’d been removed in a renovation to make room for wheelchair slots.
Don’t worry. You sit at the end in these other seats.
So we crossed the street to use tickets for seats that didn’t exist.
Our seats
We walked through the metal detectors, had our tickets scanned, and located the next step on our instructions to get a wrist band for the Home Plate Club.
The tickets were scanned again and we each got a gold wrist band.
We located our seats - not the seats on the tickets - those didn’t exist - but the seats where we were supposed to sit.
There were three together. We were told to sit in two of them and that the third one was never sold.
We went off to the Home Plate Club to buy a hot dog - our ticket included $3.50 off on one item each.
By now I was beginning to buy in to this whole thing. The parking had worked, we’d gotten into the ballpark, been given the wrist bands, and cashed in our coupons.
We were way early so Maggie and I walked around a bit, ducked into the team shop for some air conditioning, and each bought a beer. I chose a Fat Head Bumble Berry and the vendor tilted his head and looked at me and asked, “would you like MY berries?”
I did a double take and said, “I’m sorry, what?”
He smiled, held up a container of blueberries and said, “you know, for your beer.”
I nodded and he shook a dozen blueberries into the beer after he had poured it.
We headed back to the seats and there was someone sitting in them.
Hmmm.
Our tickets didn’t have those seat numbers on it. Maybe our instructions were wrong.
“Excuse me,” I said to the man sitting in one of the seats, “are these your seats?”
“No,” he said. He hadn’t thought the guy whose seats they were was coming today so they had just sat there to eat their sandwiches.
Everyone knows Uncle Shady.
“That’s fine,” I told him, “finish eating. We’ll stand over there in the shade and drink our beer.”
One of the ushers came over to us and asked if there was an issue.
“No,” I said, they were going to finish eating and then move to their seats and then we’d sit down.
“Are you with Uncle Shady?” she asked.
Of course, she didn’t say Uncle Shady - she knew his actual name. Everyone knows his actual name.
I explained our connection to him and she nodded.
Well before game time we were sitting in our seats with a great view of the park.
Guardians Crush it
It was another great game filled with home run balls.
It could be many things, but I still have that theory about global warming and home runs.
All of the scoring came on home runs - four for the Guardians, three for the Blue Jays.
About the fifth inning another usher headed our way and said, “you’re going to have to move.”
We looked up and saw that Uncle Shady had arrived. He put a hand on the usher’s shoulder and said, “that’s ok, they’re with me,” and sat in the empty seat next to us.
“Oh,” the usher said to Maggie and me, “I didn’t know you knew Uncle Shady.”
Of course, he didn’t say Uncle Shady - he knew his actual name. Everyone knows his actual name.
Uncle Shady sat down with his radio tuned to the game.
We knew we had his tickets so I asked how he’d gotten in and could we pay for his ticket.
He waved us off and told us his story.
He always has a story.
The game was sold out so all of the box offices were closed by the time he got there, but he knew a guy.
He always knows a guy.
They guy had gotten him into the stadium.
He knew the seat next to us would be open so we walked around and joined us.
As he told his story he gestured towards the entrance he’d come in at and I noticed a wrist band. Not only did he have a wrist band but it was the right color.
I asked and he said he knew a guy.
You got to love Uncle Shady.
He always knows a guy.
Essay from Dim Sum Thinking Newsletter 222. Read the rest of the Newsletter or subscribe