Hey, remember that old Chevy commercial song? I’m really bad at lyrics, so there’s no way I can recall the whole song but it had the words baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet in it. Maybe that’s enough for to get you started and one of you guys can write out the lyrics for the rest of us in the comment section.
The Sacramento Rivercats have been playing baseball at Raley Field for ten years, and I think I’m the only Sacramentan who has never been to a game. That is, until I got invited to Raley Field recently.
Imagine my excitement at the thought of not only watching fifteen men in tight uniforms out on the field batting their balls around, but watching them from a fancy schmancy suite. Or sky box. Or VIP lounge. Or whatever you call it.
Yeah, I’m a huge baseball fan. I don’t know why I’m not a season ticket holder, quite frankly. I bet I could name every player on the team. And I’m also willing to bet that at least one of them is named John. And another one is named Dave and/or Suzie.
Plus, I even know what a Rivercat is. I bet you don’t.
A river cat is a type of cat. It is often found swimming underwater, frolicking with dolphins and such. In the river. Mark Twain had a river cat named Anastasia that accompanied him on his legendary voyages along the Mississippi River back in the 1500s. Rivercats also hang out on golden bridges and smack trolls with large baseballs.
Also? At Rivercats games you’re not allowed to catch foul balls. If you do, then four men in pink chicken suits rush you and pry it out of your cold dead hands while singing “Foul ball! Foul ball!” like Gomer Pyle and then hold a brief ceremony while dissecting the ball so that it can be stretched and shellacked into a lamp fixture.
You simply can’t call yourself a real Sacramentan unless you know these things.
So anyway, I guess I got to the field a little early because while these games consistently pack the house, nobody had shown up yet.
So I waited. Like, ten and a half hours. When I realized nobody was going to show and there wasn’t going to be a baseball game, I felt super-duped. I slumped into seat A102 and sobbed until the sun went down and a security guard appeared out of nowhere. He must have felt sorry for me because he only handcuffed me until we reached the exit gate. I began resisting him and almost got away, but he grabbed me. So I got all Zsa Zsa Gabor on him and slapped like I was swimming the 100-meter dash. He must have really pitied me because his Taser setting was only on something like 41.6 bazillawatts. So a little shout out to Security Guard Ralph Watson for taking it easy on a pathetic, yet humbly rabid baseball fan.
And while I’m now banned from Raley Field — which, I’m sorry, isn’t fair, it’s not like I hurt anybody — at least now I can say I’ve been there.
A Giveaway!
If you haven’t thrown a number at me yet, please do so in my $25 Amazon Gift Card Giveway which ends this Wednesday at midnight. And if you’re not an NGIP subscriber already, subscribe to NGIP so you don’t miss the announcement of the winner.
Some "Best Of Sacramento" articles I wrote for CBS
