Day 182: I’d Rather Just Go To A Damn Ballgame [Friday Thoughts W/ TeeCoZee]

Good Moleman. That doll is evil, I tells ya. Grandpa, you said that about all the gifts. You even managed to get Milhouse on America’s Most Wanted. It’s Friday, March 19th, Twenty Twenty and One. The weather in Queens is 40˚ & Pantone 290C and somewhere, somebody is trying to figure out the right tape to use. “How did so many options become available”, they ask themselves. “The Scotch tape looks all the same, why is there 5 different packaging colors? Is it like Kleenex, where you just pick the type whose color suits your lifestyle? Should they get the tape in a box or the tape with a tube? A tape with a dispenser or one the comes with a gun? This tape is square. What the hell do you do with square tape?” Little do they know, they should probably just use a Band-Aid for their cut finger. And me? I chose painter tape for my draft lottery board. It probably won’t hold for long, but at least it’s blue. I also have some things on my mind.

– I thought we kicked Old Man Winter’s ass to the curb weeks ago. What happened? It looks beautiful outside, I want to be outside, I even pooped twice today, but no, it’s cold as balls. I always make fun of New Yorkers for never being prepared for Winter. It amazes me how shocked they get every time it gets below 40˚ for the first time. In that same regard, people should be poking fun at me for always thinking that the first warm stretch of the year is the arrival of Spring. It fools me every goddamn time. I should really know better, but that 70˚ weather has such unbridled optimism. If you ever want to con somebody into doing something stupid, do so on the first warm day of the year. We’re all much more gullible then. “Sure, you can borrow the car. It’s nice out. Go for a dream cruise. Hell, maybe I will once you’re done!” And then you never see them again. That’s Spring in a nutshell.

– Random conversation I had with Rachel:

Rachel: Is a stroke a brain injury?
Me: Yeah.
Rachel: It’s brain injury awareness month.
Me: Well…now you’re aware.

– In speaking of being tricked by the weather, I was having a conversation with a slender friend. We came to the conclusion that fat people are like Michigan Winters, while skinny-but-out-of-shape people are like New York Winters. A Michigan Winter makes sense. It’s snowy outside, so obviously, it’s also cold. That’s just logic. When you see a fat person naked, there’s no surprises. It all makes sense. New York Winters, on the other hand, are much more deceptive. It’s a beautiful day outside, the sun is singing a goddamn song for you and the second you leave the house, you’re met with a cold, cold reality. It’s much akin to seeing an average person naked. It ain’t pretty and it’s definitely not something you expected. Mediocrity hides all blemishes behind decently-fitting clothes. As morbid as the conversation was, it made me feel a lot better about being fat. I have no weird, misplaced rolls or a mis-shaped torso. My body looks exactly how you would expect it to, unlike some average dude that’s ashamed of his Dad Bod. That’s just the kind of guy I am. I wear my heart on my sleeve and my gut on my…uhh…gut.

– It’s been 537 days since I’ve been to a baseball game. I between now and then, I have bought tickets to 8 games, all of which have been voided. I’ve reached the desperate hours of my drought. I’ve got a one-track mind and that track is the Flushing Express. It’s so close, I can taste it. But it’s still oh so far away. As a vaccinated person, I thought I would be able to go to any game I wanted, anytime I could. I bought tickets to two games in April just to drive that point home. But then, last weekend, I read into the protocols. It turns out, it doesn’t matter if I’m vaccinated, I would still need to provide a negative Covid test in order to get in. I spent days driving myself insane, trying to figure out ways to get tested quickly and cheaply. It was a logistical nightmare that I was fully prepared to dive into, just for the sake of being at a ballgame.

But then, yesterday, my fears were quickly erased. They announced that stadiums could open to 20% capacity and vaccinated people no longer had to be tested. Whew. But this brought on another harsher reality: the Mets weren’t selling for 20% capacity. They were selling 100%. So all tickets bought for the month of April are null and void. If people continue acting like entitled jackasses, the same is going to happen for May. They took away the tickets, refunded everyone and now plan on releasing the tickets at an undisclosed time, with season ticket holders getting first priority. 8,492 tickets is not a lot. The last time the Mets had a paid attendance lower than that was September 30th, 1992. Greg Maddux started for the Cubs. That was a long fucking time ago. Even when the team is the jokiest of jokes, they still draw a decent crowd.

Which leads me to believe that it’s going to be really difficult to go to a Mets game. Every weekend game is going to be sold out by default. Available seats are going to be scalped to high heaven. And I’m gonna sit at home like a chump with hundreds of dollars in Stubhub credit ready to burn. At this rate, I might have better luck driving to Baltimore for a game. Or just waiting for the Brooklyn Cyclones season to start. Or god forbid the Hartford Yard Goats. I honestly don’t care where it is or who it is, as long as I can drive there comfortably. I just wanna go to a goddamned ballgame and not pay hundreds of dollars for nosebleeds. But it’s probably not that possible. Plenty of people are dealing with the same plight as me and they’re willing to shell out the big bucks for it. So I guess I’ll have to keep waiting. And waiting. And waiting.

– Try this trick over the weekend: Wear a fucking mask. Get the vaccine if you’re able to. Stop being a stupid baby and maybe we can all go to the ballgame when we want to. And also stop spreading disease and dying. Just a thought.

Have a cautious weekend, everyone!

– TeeCoZee