Nurse the Hate: Hate Indians Baseball

I have seats right on the first baseline at Progressive Field for all the excitement that is Cleveland Indians baseball. I used to go to 20 games a year until the team decided publicly they were not interested in winning but rather being “competitive” every four years or so. I now have five games. The team really blows, and there is no light at the end of this deep dark tunnel. The trades of the key players in the franchise (Cy Young award winners CC Sabathia and Cliff Lee, All Star catcher Victor Martinez and Casey Blake) netted almost nothing. Either the organization has no ability to assess talent (as their woeful draft record would suggest), or they have no leverage at all come the trade deadline. Thus, the excitement does not come from the diamond itself.

The big perk of those tickets is that foul balls come screaming into the area whenever the pitcher tries to jam a lefty inside. These are not the lazy pop ups that you catch barehanded. These hiss and curve as they rocket in. One of my favorite games last year was when the senior citizen couple wasn’t paying attention, and Mrs. Fan took a shot to the ribs. Her husband, a true sports fan, decided not to abandon his seat and instead let his wife seek medical treatment on her own with the stadium staffers. I would imagine that was a long car ride home from that game.

The other best game of 2009 was when Victor Martinez fought off an inside fastball and sent a rocket into our section. It was really too bad that 13 year old kid was paying more attention to his nachos than to Martinez’s at bat. The ball struck the kid right in the face, just below his nose. The sound was like cracking a thick stick against a burlap sack filled with hamburger. The kid immediately put his hand up to his mouth and nose, and then withdrew it to look and see if he was bleeding. He must have been surprised to see no blood on his fingers. It only took another split second until the blood started to flow out of him like spigot. The woman sitting in front of me stood facing away from the action on the field and stared at the horrifying spectacle. Meanwhile, the pitcher threw Martinez another 1-2 inside fastball that Martinez jacked back into our section. That woman was lucky she wasn’t killed as the ball whistled by us. “Hey… You better pay attention Honey.” Knowing this was a moment of self preservation, she turned back towards the field and left the bleeding boy to his fate.

I will be going to my first game of 2010 in those seats next week. Man, do I hope that there’s a lot of left handed Red Sox batters getting jammed inside. What else am I going to do? Hope Lou Marson goes deep?


Random notes: I really like the new Drive By Truckers “Big To-Do” release, as well as The Dead Weather’s “Sea of Cowards”. I would also recommend the debut release of The Soft Pack. Oh yeah, The Dum Dum Girls disc is really good too, especially if you like the Raveonettes… I was a little disappointed by the new Hold Steady and Band of Horses CDs. Maybe they’ll grow on me… I recently started re-ready Charles Bukowski. I cannot stress how important it is that you read “Women” and “Post Office”. These are some of the great works of 20th Century American literature… There is no way in hell the Indians win more than one this weekend in NY. I would also take a real hard look at the Celtics closing out the Magic tonight, especially if the line drops to 2.5.