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A proper baseball uniform

Today is Major League Baseball’s Opening Day and if you’re anything like me, Schadenfreude.net Reader, you hate baseball because it’s boring and not football.  I figured the least I could do was offer you a survival guide to help you make it through opening day and the rest of the way too long baseball season.

• When people say “opening day” look at them quizzically and say, “Don’t you just mean Monday?”
• If you are asked who your favorite baseball team is reply, “I don’t need an excuse for a three-hour nap.”
• Tell people you’ll start watching baseball when players stop wearing pajamas and start wearing baseball uniforms.  (Nothing pisses off sports fans more than talking about uniforms.)
• Remember that if you make it through opening day, you can ignore the sport until the end of September and you won’t have missed a thing.
• In case you happen to like games that mean something, the NHL and NBA playoffs happen in early summer.
• If you find yourself in a situation where everyone is talking about baseball and you can’t leave the room or you have forgotten your killing spoons, it’s always a good move to make a “wait ‘til next year” joke about the Cubs.
  
  
  

  Pajamas

• Don’t turn down tickets to a baseball game.  There’s nothing better than a sunny day in an oversized beer garden.  Don’t let baseball ruin that opportunity.
• Find a room full of baseball fans, mention steroids and statistics and sit back and watch their brains explode.
• Implement a new baseball style training regime where you run 90 feet and then stand around for ten minutes then run 90 feet and stand around for ten minutes.
• Spend all the extra time you get back from not watching or following baseball to become an expert with killing spoons.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Ha ha. Really makes me feel better about being a theater nerd. Even sports guys can’t get a kiss from his OWN significant other after winning the NLCS. That must have been an awkward drive home.

Hey folks, Fred the Tuckpointer here with one you’ll never believe.  Last time I blogged, I was telling you all about how my neighbor Don got a letter from the crummy IRS telling him he owed big time.  I’d been seeing all these “tea parties” on TV where a bunch of people who hate President Obama get dressed up and protest being taxed.  I told Don we had to go.   At first he seemed interested, but when the day of the event came he told me he’d rather be tarred and feathered and chickened out.  Turns out Don’s got some “liberal sensitivities”.  He probably likes the Steelers, too.  While he stayed home trying to figure out a payment plan to Uncle Sam, I went to Conservapedia to get the real scoop about Tea Parties. The more I read, the more I liked the idea – back in the day, the colonists revolting from England got together, dressed up as Indians, snuck on some ships and dumped a bunch of tea into the harbor.  The lesson: Money Talks.  That got the Brits’ attention, and we proceeded to kick their ass.  200+ years later, the conservatives were going to do the same to Obama and all the shit he’s trying to run past us.   Being the patriot I am, I knew I had to do this tea party proper.

To start, I needed a costume.  Time to go old school – I decided to dress up as an Indian.  Now here’s the beauty of living in the greater Cleveland area – our baseball team mascot is also an Indian!  So I already had my costume from all of my Tribe gear.

A side note: they need to fire Wedge and Shapiro ASAP.  I can’t believe how bad they were this year.

Anyway, I pulled out the Chief Wahoo mask from 10 cent beer night and was set to go:

Sweet, huh?  And since I was going as the Chief, I figured I could call some shots.  My wife Sadie says its all racist and crap, but c’mon…its tradition!  Ol’ Chief Wahoo never hurt anyone.

I got to Public Square bright and early on the day of the party, and it was already packed.  There must have been a hundred people there!  Everyone else  had signs, but I didn’t know I was supposed to bring one.  Some lady from the Fox News truck told me to go and make a sign, so I ran over to the drug store and got some poster board and a marker.

Now here was the hard part – there was going to be TV there, and I wanted to make sure the IRS saw my sign and got the message.  So I wrote “Tuckpointers Hate Taxes” and ran out to join the crowd.  Some speakers got up on the mic and started us off with a prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance.   Then things got a little weird.

The next bunch of speakers didn’t say anything about taxes at all.  The first guy, some preacher, talked about how Obama was the AntiChrist and wanted to abort everyone’s kids.  That went on for a while.   The next lady said that Obama was from Kenya and couldn’t be president, that he was also some Muslim killer and wanted to convert me.  I figured everyone had some grievances to air, and that taxes may not come up for awhile.  Rather than sit out there listening to some dude drone on, I ducked into Johny’s for a cold one.  A few beers and some wings later I came back out – same lady was talking about Obama’s birth certificate.  I gotta hand it to her, she was prepared.  Slides and everything.  I went back in ’cause the Browns were on.

Around 5 I was pretty wasted.  I went back out to check on the party, but it seemed to be breaking up.  I asked a couple of people if they ever got around to taxes and representation, but couldn’t get a straight answer.  I decided to make my own statement.   I grabbed my sign, and ran for the F50.  It was time for my secret weapon.  I figured there wouldn’t be any ships in the lake carrying tea for me to chuck overboard, so I stopped at Sam’s on my way downtown and picked up a few cases of Lipton.  I pulled them out of the truck, threw up some, then high tailed it back.   Most everyone was gone at that point, and the Fox people were packing up.  I had once chance.  I opened a post box near the fountain and started pouring in tea.  When I saw people finally paying attention, I yelled “Give me liberty and cut taxes for the top 2%!”  Suddenly I felt this sting in my stomach and smelled burning hair.  Then I was out.

Turns out some cop tasered me.  I woke up in the paddy wagon, where he yelled at me for a while.  I had to go to jail for a little bit and call Sadie to come bail me out.  She wasn’t too happy about that, screaming that we didn’t have the money for the bail on her salary and all sorts of other crap.  That night I flipped on Fox 8, but I didn’t see myself in the segment.  I lost my Chief Wahoo mask, and didn’t even get to go back for the rest of my tea.

So…it looks like I’m on the couch for awhile.  But no worries…I know I made a difference to those 4 people who saw me and my act of defiance.  Taxes suck, and there’s no other way around it.  Next time, I’ll steer clear of Johny’s…gotta keep a level head when so much is on the line.  So till then, Fred the Tuckpointer signing off.

When does this show come back? Soon isn’t soon enough.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Minor league ballparks are so much more fun than major league. Why, you ask? Simply because you can get a 4800 calorie burger that is the best elements of hamburgers and nachos thrown together on a bun.

I don’t know about you – but this looks tasty. AND – it’s a deal – 5 hamburgers for $20 at a ballpark, that’s $4 hamburgers. I was just at Wrigley on Friday, and that SAME burger (minus the lettuce, tomato, nacho cheese, fritos, sour cream, salsa and chili) was $6.50.

Take THAT.

Sheesh. You’d think it’s the end of the world with all the bad news coming out of boob-tube! You probably forgot your favorite teams have just started the never-ending race towards the pennant. (in like another 5 months)

Sit back, and let Adam remind you of a warm summer afternoon, some 80s baseball players and steroids. Adam does a reading from Jose Canseco’s tell-all book.

Click here to view the embedded video.

* Either Dodger fans are total assholes, or being yelled at is merely the plight of wearing the opposition cap in a stadium looking at the NL Championship. Can’t confirm.

* Guys, you have the second cheapest seats in the stadium, you’re behind the foul pole, please don’t shout that the last ball was a strike. The pitcher threw it, that I can confirm, but that’s about it.

* Either irony is forbidden in Dodger’s stadium, or, again, a sympton of the pennant race. The asshole fuckfaces in front of us could not let any minor minor Dodger victory (a strike) go without pointing and yelling at a set of Cubs fans across from them. Ditto with anything the cubs did. The Cubs got a single and they booed them for only getting a single, that only losers get singles. In my only interaction with them I said “you know, you guys didn’t complain when the Dodger’s got a single.” It was like explaining soup to a caveman.

* There must be something immasculating about selling Cotton Candy. The Beer Guy seems to be able to hold his head way higher, and shout way louder.

* They flashed Vince Vaughn in a Cubs hat up on the Tv-i-tron, L.A. hasn’t reacted that way to Vince since the opening weekend numbers on Fred Claus (BOOM!)

* And finally, something that seemed to sum the whole evening up. I was standing in line to pay $10 for a beer and the janitor behind the counter looked up from sweeping stray nachos to see my Cubs hat. He holds up the broom which he was just cleaning with and yelled “SWEEEEEEEP”. That might be the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.