My Night In Hell

My seats were amazing.  I was five rows back from the Cubs dugout within an arms throw of home plate.  But besides the miserable score, pitiful playing, and the large sweaty woman who kept wiping her dripping forehead before handing me my hot dog with more salt in it than the Dead Sea... the night offered even more atrocities to keep my therapist busy and well-paid for quite some time.

1.  I got a better look at the cheerleaders
Remember in high school how there were the cheerleaders, and then there was the Flag Corp? The Flag Corp was comprised of the girls who couldn't make the cheerleading team - slightly lumpy, uncoordinated girls who spent their weekends watching taped episodes of Square Pegs and wondering what Pearle Vision store might carry those fabulous plastic rims SJP was sporting.  These are the girls the Reds have hired to "motivate the masses".  They didn't dance so much as pantomime how hard it was to squeeze themselves into the spandex they were stuffed in that was two sizes too small. Their shiny Hooters tights weren't enough to contain the bulging flesh that was trying desperately to breathe.  And they couldn't quite figure out how to use the slingshot they were given to catapult t-shirts into the crowd, resulting in many "misfires" - including one that hit a small child.  The guilty "cheerleader" responded the only way she knew how - giggling and than pointing at the small child, which just confused it more.

2. Good Family Fun
Mr. Red, who is a top-heavy mascot with a stuffed shirt and large baseball for a head, not only ignored children that wanted his autograph, but also decided to take baseball rivalry to a new low.  Around the 6th inning, he got up on the Cubs dugout and grabbed a man's Cubs hat off of his head.  He waved it around, rubbed it in his armpit and then to the horror to the 3 people with human decency in the surrounding areas proceeded to WIPE HIS ASS with it.  The two small children sitting next to the hatless Cubs fan (adorably clad in Cubs gear, BTW) started to cry as if wondering, "Why is Mr. Red doing this to Daddy?" The Reds fans cheered him on in their drunken stupors, and I watched one fan ("Daddy, why does that man's eyes match his Reds jersey?") fall over into another row with his hands conveniently landing on a female Cubs fans chest.   This of course was met with even more cheering from the Reds fans.  I'm not sure if this is all a part of Great American's attempt to have the all-American baseball experience, but I for one was appalled.  Especially with so many children around.  What are we teaching them?

3. Speaking of Teaching
There was a Reds fan father sitting in front of me teaching is son about baseball.  Unfortunately, the man didn't know anything about the sport. He kept confusing a sinker and a slider, and at one point told his son that Adam Dunn was known as "Mr. Defense".  So it didn't surprise us that at one point the kid was devastated that the ump called a ball on one of the Reds batters.  "Nooooooo!!!!!"

My friend Michelle who joined me last night, apologized profusely on behalf of the city of Cincinnati and said she was truly embarrassed at everything she had witnessed.  I, in turn, apologized for her having to watch Neifi Perez pinch hit with a .192 average.