Editor’s note – This article originally appeared on AstrosConnection.com.
Due to the last minute bolting down of some seats in the nether-reaches of Enron Field, my father and I were able to continue our tradition of attending the Astros’ home opener. Of course, being in Enron, it made the day that much more special, or so I would have been led to believe. Let me tell you guys, Enron is not all it’s cracked up to be.
First of all, as we looked for parking, and the native Houstonian in my father got the better of him and we ended up paying $15 to be park at the corner of Crawford and Congress. I had been pointing out $4-5 lots that are in abundance the entire way up Franklin. As I did I started to understand that my father was actually concerned that someone might have tried to steal his 1991 Honda Civic hatchback. I immediately began to suspect that Drayton had laced the ticket stubs with a powerful drug. Possibly the same drug in the Mustard Blend at Texadelphia or the “Original recipe” at KFC…hmmm.
Anyway…then we had to walk nearly a block and a half to get to the Union Station Entrance to the field. My father is old enough to have actually ridden a train which had departed from the station several eons ago. The walk is where the problems started. First of all, you have to cross actual streets with actual cars actually driving by you. You could tell many people were bewildered and just plain scared, likely because they had never had to deal with such trying circumstances going to Astros games in the past. Several of them actually waited at corners for several hours trying to figure out what to do next. No one broke down and cried, but I could tell several of them wanted to. My father, having crossed streets in other cities, seemed pretty well equipped to overcome the native Houstonian in him, and so we crossed the street with little to no difficulty.
Walking along Crawford, I noticed at least 100 of Drayton’s heavily armed, lackey Disenfranchised-People movers (nee police officers) wandering around, trying to pretend to help people do things like cross the street and find the really huge building to their immediate left. Can anyone say Police State? I felt my personal freedoms being violated every step of the way. Isn’t it my constitutional right to panhandle and sleep in doorways if I so choose? They also were wearing several devices which I’m sure were transmitting mind-altering rays so we wouldn’t say anything about the dirt not being raked properly in the lackey flower-beds lining the stadium. I really wanted to bitch aloud about the nearly quarter-inch gap between the hastily laid cement slabs making up the sidewalk (I think one even had a crack…that’s gonna raise my property taxes…I’m sure of it) but for some reason, I stayed strangely silent.
Once we got in Union Station, the first thing you do is look straight up, which caused spasms in my father’s neck. I didn’t see a spinal adjustment booth, but you know there’s going to be one soon, at a low, low price. The malevolent force the cops were transmitting pulled both my father and I kicking and screaming into the gift shop that was located oh-so conveniently towards the entrance of the park (it was a little too convenient if you ask me) We were forced to buy memorabilia and merchandise. I’m pretty sure the sudden and real need to buy a Red Astros cap…not brick, maroon or orange…but actually and entirely RED…was due to the whole group of the EFUS employees walking around trying to “helpful”. What they were really doing was trying to make you feel horrible if you weren’t spending at least $100. You know, they were saying things like “Can I help you find anything,” and “Let me see if I can special order that for you,” and, “have a nice day.” Bastards, all of them. Just as I thought we’d get over by only spending $92.65 on four hats, a pin and a t-shirt, they perpetrated their typical Drayton fraudness on my father when they told us in a friendly but secretly smug tone, “We’re not set up to take American Express yet.” Only when I ended up putting the purchase on my check card did I begin to think my father might be in on the conspiracy.
So now, lackey merchandise in hand, we decided to make our way to our seats in section 422. The next rude awakening slapped me across the mouth like a nun answering the question, “Why?”. There are no ramps in the whole freakin’ stadium. Not one ramp. I nearly went ballistic when one of Drayton’s lackeys informed me that the best way to get up to our seats was the escalators and elevators. Nearly $300 million dollars of rental car and hotel money and not one huge, awkwardly sloped cement ramp? Would the madness never end?
Before reaching our seats, we had to ride not one but two sets of escalators to get to the 4th level. The first set led to the club level. Because neither my father nor I were given the proper genetic sequencing to be able to afford Club Level seating, a shill piercing siren went off that only ended when we got on the escalator to the upper-deck. Plenty more of Drayton’s lackeys standing around, being “helpful” and smiling in that condescending “screw you, no sushi-having taxpayers sort of way.”
We needed a beer after that trying ordeal. They serve in abundance…in freakin’ plastic bottles. Leave it to Drayton McLane to screw the taxpayers by not using glass bottles, putting millions out of work while he lines his pockets. Notice the lackey fishwrap hasn’t uttered one word about the layoffs of all the glassmakers. Anyway, when I sauntered up to the counter and asked for dome foam and then they handed me a plastic bottle of beer, I nearly knocked the kid out with the vein busting out from my forehead. I was livid. “How dare you not sell Dome Foam?” I raged. “I suppose the next thing you’re going to tell me is you don’t serve Dome Dogs, either.”
They probably won’t find his body.
Part of my anger and dismay was that there were just too many damn concession stands to choose from. There should have been better planning done, and concession stands should have been opened in a way that Dome dwellers would have been used to…like the 1 or 2 they might have opened in the 7th level on the opposite side of the stadium from me. That would have been easier to handle, but noooo. Drayton has to open up all of them at once. I’m surprised no one was tying to leap out of the huge arch windows, although several people were lined up looking outside them, so I’m pretty sure that’s what they were considering.
Another thing about the concession stands…I had trouble recognizing the workers, and frankly if they weren’t on the other side of the counters, I never would have figured it out (a point for you, cursed McLane). They’re not wearing bowties and black aprons. Not one of them. And they’re also doing that whole smiling friendly bit. I hope whatever they got for their souls was worth it. Pointing out to me where the mustard and napkins are…what do I look like? The condiments are sitting over on the huge cinderblock barriers, just like they have been as long as I can remember. Except…get this…not one huge cinder-block condiment stand. And the little retro stainless steel carts are not only fully stocked, but clean and manned by an attendant. C’mon Drayton…don’t we even get kissed?
Once we made it up to our seats, and noticed there were no cushions on them, I was certain that my father was going to want to go home. And we probably would have but the master of deceit started opening the roof. Again with the damn neck thing. The Astros will definitely be hearing from my chiropractor. The roof is silent except for the really loud clang that came from the mechanisms every 30 seconds or so. We were certain that it was going to collapse on us at any moment, as was the little inbred girl sitting directly behind us, but Drayton lucked out…this time.
The presentation started and Michael Buffer, a man who is famous despite exhibiting lameness of biblical proportions, was brought in to do the intros. Let’s get ready to rumble, Let’s get ready to rumble, Let’s get ready to rumble. Sue me, freak. Then, as if to prove that there was no roof, they dropped some Army Rangers on the field. Frauds.
The whole affair smacked of homer-based lackeyism.
I’m not going to recount the game, because that’s been done ad nauseum. It was fun, and I’m sure it would have been better had we won. However, the overabundance of insects was too much of a distraction for us. There were at least 3 moths flying near the light stands and one mosquito actually had the courage to bite me. Okay, actually I had caught my forearm on the doorknob at my house, but it looked like a mosquito bite. You’ve won this round Drayton, but your luck won’t hold out forever.
Dante Bichette Watch-A-Thon 2000
After one week of baseball, the true savior of Cincinnati Baseball, Dante Bichette is walloping the ball around the park. Unfortunately it’s with his glove and not his bat. The best thing I heard about Dante this week was from ESPN…”It’s not easy balancing on a round object.” Now if I can just figure out of they were talking about the ball or his ass.
Player G AB H 2b HR RBI AVG OBP SLG E Bichette 7 27 5 0 2 2 .185 .267 .407 1
Astro of the Week…Well, since no one is actually hitting besides this week’s pick, the choice was pretty easy. Richard Hidalgo is making Tom McCraw look more and more valuable by the game. He jacked 2 this week, is hitting over .400 and appears to have a lot more of a clue at the plate than he exhibited all of last year. Besides, Grand Slams are cool…ESPN told me so. Honorable mention goes to Shane Reynolds, who evidently decided to screw with everyone’s heads this spring with some absolutely brutal outings. He’s started off strong with a 1-0 record, 14 innings pitched and a 2.57 ERA in 2 starts this week.
DisAstro of the Week…Watching the game on Sunday against the Phils, I don’t understand why someone who had Lasik surgery during the offseason was screwing with his eyes as much as he was, but Jeff Bagwell needs to adjust more than the bags under his eyes. At the close of business Sunday, he was batting .200 and was looking rather clueless at the plate. I don’t get to do anything but praise the guy most weeks, so I have to take my opportunities when I can. When do we go to Wrigley?