Respect The Pitch! And How I Made A Yankees Fan Cry.

Before I tell another story about going to Yankee Stadium, I have to say that I hate the Yankees. But I wanted to see the new palace the Steinbrenner clan tricked the city into spending $400 trillion to build. So, up to the Bronx I went. Oh, and they were playing the Phillies, who I also hate. But interleague is interleague and I could hate on both teams equally.

Yeah, the stadium is pretty fucking solid. I’d say it’s probably one of the best places in Major League Baseball to go watch some rich assholes eat babies, poor people puke on themselves, or the Yanks play a game against some other douche team from the AL. My two favorite features are the padded seats and the garlic fries. And in some ironic joke, they put a fucking fruit stand in there. “I’ll take two dogs, chicken fingers, nachos, four Buds… oh and two Red Delicious apples please.” Yeah right.

And now let’s get to the Macguffin of my story. I live by one rule when attending a professional baseball game, “Respect The Pitch.” It’s very simple, if the pitcher is going to throw a pitch, you keep you fat ass in your God damn seat. That’s it.

If they’re singing God Bless America, or some little 19-year-old piece of ass is throwing out free t-shirts, or Jeter and A-Rod are doing lines of coke in the dugout during a commercial break, do whatever the fuck you want. Stand up and cheer like you just don’t care. Pull out your dick. Find a Phillies fan and punch him/her right in the cocksucker. I don’t give a shit! BUT, if the pitcher is in his windup you should NEVER be cluttering the field of vision of my gorgeous-baby-ocean-sky-blue-Arian-20-20-laser-surgery-vision-mother-fucking eyes! (They’re really quite nice, women get lost in them.) That’s all I ask, “Respect The Pitch.”

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not one of those a-holes with a radio headset filling out a scorecard during the game. Daddy likes to drink and then daddy usually breaks the seal around the third inning. So, including six piss breaks, beer and food runs, I’m outta my seat a lot. But I would NEVER block anybody’s view of the game! That’s because every pitch thrown in a baseball game has the potential to be the best play ever, or at the very least a fucking ‘web gem’ on douche-center that night. 99% of the time it’s a ball or a foul tip, but just do me a fucking favor and “RESPECT THE MOTHER FUCKING PITCH.”

Oddly enough, somebody at this particular Yankees game wasn’t following my ONE rule. A curly haired woman wearing a Jeter jersey (go figure.) and her “date” decided to get up and push through the entire aisle in front of me and during a double fucking play! I didn’t get to see it.

As the asshole couple passed up the stairs, you’ll never guess what I did. I fucking let them have it. “Hey, is everything OK?” I yell. “We all just missed a double play! Is there an emergency at home? Do you have to leave? Or are you just so disrespectful to the people around you that you don’t care if anybody else gets to see the game?”

I wish had had a picture of the look on this broad’s face. Completely and utterly confused as to why I’d be yelling at her. Her only retort was, “why don’t you shut up?” “Respect the pitch,” I yelled back.

About ten minutes later, they came back… during a God damn pitch. Lumbering down the aisle, making their whole row get up, I let them have it again! Jeter’s No. 1 fan was completely dumbfounded. She honestly thought I was being a dick to her for no reason. Her husband/gay friend/dick-of-the-month is just shrugging his shoulders, almost as if to say “sorry she’s one of those self-centered bitches that thinks the world revolves around her.” Most of the people in front of me acknowledged my rightness. And that was the end of that.

Maybe five minutes later, the 21-year-old “lady” seated behind me taps me on the shoulder.

“Why did you yell at those people?” she asks.

“They didn’t respect the pitch and I missed a double play,” I say.

The look that crossed her face was extremely similar to the poop smelling face the other broad had. I was then subjected to the worst verbal beat down I have ever been dealt. Worse than the lamest fight on the 100^th rated reality show on TV. Princess didn’t appreciate me policing the game and wanted to let me know these were her seats! Or her Daddy’s and he wasn’t using them tonight.

“You should keep your mouth shut and get out of our seats,” she moaned. “If people in our seats want to get up and enjoy the park, then let them.”

“Yes, but I’m trying to enjoy the game, which is why we’re all here.”

“No,” she cried like a total bitch. “Get out of our seats!”

“Excuse me,” I ask.

And then she let out a quick, “buh-bye.”

“What?”

“Get out of our seats, buh-bye!”

I had nothing. The “buh-byes” kept coming. By the time she said it for the fourth time she was holding up her hand like a little puppet and the movement of her hand matched the “buy-bye.” The sixth one just smacked me in the face and I sat there with my mouth open looking like a fat goober. I had been bested by a 21-year-old over privileged gash. I turned back to face the game in defeat, thinking that I just got beaten by “buy-bye.”

Funny thing, if you’re ever arguing with me you should never, under no circumstances give me any ammunition.

A few minutes after the last echoes of “buh-bye” bounced their way out of the outfield, my little friend got a phone call. I tried really fucking hard not to listen in, but her squawking made that impossible. Here’s a quick paraphrase of that phone call… imagine a girl with an awful voice, trying to make it sound sexy;

“Hi Tommy… Are you down at the shore?... I’m coming down tomorrow… I’m at the baseball game… Are you hanging there with Victoria?... Oh no!... Stay away from her!... Oh no, I don’t have a boyfriend, we broke up… a few weeks ago…. Yeah we should totally hang out!... OK Tommy, see you tomorrow…. Stay away from Victoria! Bye Sweetie.”

That conversation went on and on for about ten minutes but that’s the gist of it. About a second after The Buh-Bye Girl hung up, I turned in my seat and said, “I can’t imagine why your boyfriend broke up with you.”

As it turns out, I must have stepped on a very sensitive nerve.

“What!” she said.

“No wonder you don’t have a fucking boyfriend,” I slyly said.

“Fuck you,” she cried. “Get out of my seats!” And then she gestured to spill her beer on me.

“Do it!”

“You’re fat,” she yelled.

“If we’re going with the obvious,” I said. “You have greasy hair and no boyfriend.”

She muttered “fuck you,” as she held her beer over my head.

“I’m willing to bet you’ll be single all year.”

I realized she’s really into the whole repetitive thing, because now “fuck you” was all she was saying.

“You looking forward to getting Tommy’s sloppy seconds tomorrow?”

“Fuck you.”

“Single all year.”

“Fuck you.”

“I’m sure you’ll fuck a lot of dudes, like Tommy, but nobody’s gonna wanna date you.”

“Fuck you.”

“You will be single all year!”

At this point she is in a rage! Her beer is spilling all over, some of it on me, but not a lot. She’s giving me the finger and just singing a chorus of “Fuck You.”

“Do you realize that when guys hate fuck you,” I say. “It’s not just because you’re an asshole?”

“What does that fucking mean?” she cried. She’d lost it at this point and was standing. My friends and her friends were interjecting at this point and I was just smiling. I turned my attention back to the game. The damage had been done.

For the next couple of minutes she lobbed a few words at the back of my head and finally in tears she said to her friend, “I’m going up there for a minute. I’ll be back.” She never came back. I really wanted her to just so I could say, “buh-bye.” But I didn’t get the chance.

There are two morals to this story. The first one is to “RESPECT THE PITCH!” And the second is that you shouldn’t yell at somebody for yelling at somebody. Because I will find a center in you. I will chew it up and leave. Well in this case, I chewed it up and stayed to watch the Phillies womp ass on the Yankees!

The Time I Got Mugged

Couple years back, I got mugged. I look back on it and think it was more of an aggressive panhandling then a mugging, but it was seven years ago and I still tell the story all the time. I never get sick of it so, I thought I’d write it down… in blogform. I even attached a visual aid! Check out the horribly stitched together picture. I’m the white guy.

September 8, 2003. A warm late summer evening that began with a trip to the Bronx. If you’re going to be a victim of a crime, the Bronx is probably the sexiest place on earth that could happen. Fortunately, no muggings, gang beatings, forced acts of sodomy or stray bullets ruined my first trip to Yankee Stadium. I’m a Mets fan, but got offered a free ticket to see the Bombers play a makeup game against Toronto. The game was unbelievably poorly attended and the Blue Jays kicked ass, 9-3. I had a perfect buzz and was chanting “Let’s go BJ’s” with impunity!

I had attended the game with my friend Bram and after the Yankees were finished pooping all over the field, we both headed back to Jersey City. I lived about fifteen blocks away from Bram, or one stop on the Path train. Because it was early and the season opener of Monday Night Football was on, we decided to watch the game at Bram’s house. On the way there, I used my last twenty dollar bill to buy smokes and a six-pack. Being 2003, this purchase only ran about twelve or thirteen bucks.

The Eagles ended up losing to the Buccaneers, 17-0, in what was the first game in their new stadium. McNabb!

Leaving Bram’s I had three options on how to get home:

1. Path train. I would have had to backtrack a few blocks and wait up to thirty minutes for a train.

2. Cab. Jersey City cab drivers like to pick up additional fairs while you’re in the cab. It’s like a little bus. So, fuck those assholes. Whenever I did end up taking a cab in Jersey City, I would never shut the door when I got out. Just to annoy the dickhead cabbie.

3. Walk. As my lazy Mom would say, from the time I was ten years old until I got my driver’s license, “It’s a nice night, you kids can walk,” because she never picked me up from anywhere EVER!

It was a nice night so I decided to hoof it, and off I went up the hill that is Montgomery Avenue. I figured this decision was a calculated risk. It was after midnight on a school night and I only had to walk passed two housing projects. Well wouldn’t you know it? There was some trouble waiting for me across the street from housing project No. 2.

If you haven’t taken a look at my visual aid, so cleverly titled “The Scene Of The Crime,” yet. Please take a gander at that right now.

If you’ll notice the sunken plaza parking lot to the right of me, “The Victim,” it was down there that I first noticed “The Perp.” As I was walking along the sidewalk, “The Perp” was shadowing me down in the plaza parking lot. (Incidentally, that plaza is home to Chun Bo Chinese Restaurant. Over the next four years I will spend about $10,000 on General Tso’s Shrimp. Call ‘em and order some of that shit! (201) 369.0010.) Anyway, I don’t think too much about my shadow down in the parking lot, because he’s got no way to get up to me… I thought. That’s when I noticed the stairs. And then two seconds after that, guess who was running up those stairs?

At this point, I'm going over the inventory of my pockets in my mind. iPod, cell phone, empty wallet, and the wad of seven or eight singles in my front right pocket.

Having completed my inventory, I put my head down and just tried to keep it moving. As I passed my shadow at the top of the stairs, he stepped right in front of me and said “You better run it.”

Having no idea if I should run or blow my nose, I quickly gave “The Perp” a quick once over and noticed several things:

1. I was at least six inches taller and fifty pounds bigger than him.

2. His left hand was in the pocket of his jacket like he was pointing a gun, or his finger at me.

3. His right hand was holding a boom box and a lit cigarette.

4. He had a scarf over his mouth.

5. He was standing at the top of the staircase.

“Pardon me?” I say. He repeated his original statement, “You better run it.” Maybe because I was drunk, or maybe cause he was so little, or maybe because I would have bet my life on the fact that he didn’t have a gun, I decided to play dumb smartass. If this guy was going to mug me, he had better come right out and say it! “You better run it?” Like the white guy walking passed the projects after midnight is gonna have a copy of the Urban Dictionary on him? He might as well have said, “See a broad to get that booty ack, lay ‘em down and smack ‘em yack ‘em,” and I would have had the same reaction. I’m sorry I don’t speak jive.

“I’m sorry, man,” I say. “I don’t know what you’re saying? Do you want me to leave really fast?” And then my little friend took it up a notch. His voice hardened and he wanted to let me know he wasn’t playing with the big dumb guy anymore. “YOU BETTER FUCKING RUN IT!” Realistically, at this point, if I just forked over my seven or eight dollars and got out of there, I didn’t care.

So, I act like it dawns on me. “Oh, do you want this?” I say as I pull my wad of crumpled up singles out of my pocket. And then the dumb motherfucker uses the hand he’s supposedly holding his “gun” with to take the money out of my hand. Well, he certainly wasn’t going to put down his boom box and cigarette.

I quickly tried to decide if I should punch and then push him down the stairs, or skip the punch and just push him. That’s when I noticed “Some Asshole” a few feet ahead. He was just standing there watching me get mugged. Quick glance behind me revealed “Another Asshole” just standing there. Sadly, both Assholes were a lot bigger than me.

In retrospect, had either “Some Asshole” or “Another Asshole” been running the proceedings at the first “You better run it,” I would have forked over my money, iPod, cell phone, bent over and pulled my pants down and then offered to pay for a cab to take us to an ATM so they could drain my checking account.

After Lil’ Perppy took all my money and I realized that I was at a major disadvantage I said, “So, if we’re done? I’m gonna run it now.” And I just walked away very briskly.

I often wonder what my money was spent on. I like to think that my assailants used to the money to buy a book for one of their children, or medicine for a sick grandparent. Or, at the very least, instead of buying the three dollar bottle of malt liquor, they splurged and bought a four dollar bottle of malt liquor.

I called the cops when I got home and described the three guys and told them exactly where they mugged me, but they refused to do anything unless I went to the station to fill out a report. I would have had to walk passed at least one set of projects to get to the police station, so I just decided to cut my losses and call it a night.

To this day, “You better run it,” is usually one of the first things Bram says to me whenever I see him. And that's the story about the time I got mugged.