AFFotD’s Guide To Going To Baseball Games

“Take me out to the…oh God, I’m so drunk right now…”

~Harry Caray

Baseball is an American pastime that is surprisingly similar to our love of cool-whip based salads—other nations might not understand why we love it so much, but that just serves to remind us why we’re the best nation in the world and every other nation is a bunch of defense-budget-ignoring pansies.  Yes, baseball is a uniquely American sport that somehow still maintains its popularity despite taking three-to-four hours to play a game in an era where attention spans are so short they oh look spaghetti!

Still, Americans love baseball, and have followed it from its booze-and-coke filled beginnings, throughout its amphetamines-binging phase in the 70s and 80s, and all the way through its current steroids-and-oh-yeah-still-sometimes–coke-incarnation.  And why the fascination with a sport where every player spends the majority of the game in a stationary position?  Well, it helps that going to a ballgame is the most American activity one can skip work for.

It is with that intrepid American spirit that we gather our resources (get drunk and watch a baseball game) to give you the appropriate guide with all you’d need to know about going to a baseball game.  Because summer will be over soon, and we don’t want to hear you bitching about how you wish you had gone outside more.

AFFotD’s Guide To Going To Baseball Games

Baseball fields are where fresh air meets overpriced shitty beers meets the kind of people who are so devoted on getting drunk in the fresh air that they will spend $60 to get drunk on Bud Light.  It is a wonderful environment where everyone is a winner (so long as the home team wins, or that they don’t cut off beer sales before you can get appropriately sloshed) and where children learn to dream about being a Major Leaguer, while also learning how to appropriately call someone a “fucksponge.”

But some go to baseball games relatively clueless, not knowing that you can smuggle in your own pints of Jack Daniels, or that if you run on the field and punch an umpire, you might get arrested but you’ll end up getting laid that night at the bars closest to the stadium.  That’s why we are here to provide you with a series of unorganized tips to enhance your baseball attending experience.

Most Stadiums Search Backpacks.  Few Stadiums Search Back Pockets.  Hint.

Beer at baseball games is expensive, shitty, and actually has less alcohol than if you purchased the same beer at a grocery store.  So if you want to really enjoy your baseball experience (read as: be drunk) you’ll either want to heavily pregame and keep up the pace during the game, or you can smuggle in some whiskey to pour in the coke you order from the vendors.

While you aren’t “allowed” to bring in your alcohol, for obvious reasons (it would make baseball too fun), how are they going to stop you?  Well, each stadium has security personnel who focus on making sure you don’t bring in your own cheaply-gotten alcohol, but it’d be too much of a hassle to pat down every potential drunkard who walks into a stadium.  There are people that like to bring backpacks into the game who might try to get their booze smuggled in that way.  We call those people “hopeless amateurs.”

All you need is a pint of booze, a back pocket, and a jersey that hangs ever so loosely over your waist, and you’ve got yourself a one way ticket to “swearing at the left fielder until security comes, smells your drink, pours it out, and kicks you out of the game” central!

There Will Be Children Around You, And You Will Swear In Front Of Them.  Loudly. (Despite Your Best Intentions).

Now, we’re not saying that you should go into a baseball game expecting to swear in front of kids, but that’s going to happen.  No matter what you say, it’s inevitable.  Oh, you’ll be the responsible adult stranger figure to start things off, saying “darn” instead of “damn” and “Yeesh, I don’t know about that one” instead of “YOU FUCKING SUCK UMP I WILL MURDER YOUR FAMILY” but that’ll only last the first three beers of the first two innings.

After a while, you’re no longer lowering your voice by 30 decibels while ducking your head to make sure that your utterance of the word “shit” isn’t heard by young impressionable ears, and you’ve started loudly telling that story about your friend who paid for a prostitute in Amsterdam and found out that they impose a strict time limit.  You’ll notice the distressed look on the children’s parents that seems to scream, “I knew it was a bad idea to take my son to a baseball game” but that won’t sway you.  Nothing will sway you.  By the end of the game, that kid is going to learn exactly seventeen new instances where he’d be able to use the word “vulva.”

Do Not Talk To The Dude Filling Out A Scorecard After Your Second Beer

Statistically, unless it’s September and your team is in the thick of an intense wild card or division race, you don’t care that much about the game you’re watching.  Yes, you’re aware of the implications of this particular bases loaded, two out situation, but you also know that in half an inning they stop serving, so you have no qualms flagging down the beer vender as the pitch is coming in.

Not so for that-one-middle-aged-season-ticket-holder-filling-out-a-scorecard.  He’s from a simpler time.  A time before smart phones and jumbotrons.  He’s the kind of man who made enough money to afford season tickets back when he had to know how to use a fax machine in his office.  This guy is old school, which means that he hates everything about you because you came in reeking of four loko while loudly boasting about how you added a shot of vodka to your beer to make it a “super beer” right before puking on his teenage son.  This guy doesn’t understand what baseball is all about, and when you ask him why he wrote that one “K” backwards in the little box, he’ll probably say something ignorant to you like, “Would you please leave me alone, my son and I are trying to watch a game, why don’t you go back to your keg stand back there…wait, Jesus Christ, how did you smuggle an entire keg into this game?  And did you purchase tickets for that seat just so you could put a keg there for keg stands?  Why isn’t security doing anything about this?!”

Seriously, scorecard guy, get over yourself.

And Most Importantly, Have Fun and Cheer Hard!

Haha, just kidding, just make sure you stumble out of the stadium with only a mild recognition of where you are and who won the game.  Because this is America, goddamn it, not one of those cricket watching godforsaken countries.