Ouch.
Last week we had a company outing to see the Durham Bulls play Klinger’s favorite team, the Toledo Mud Hens. It was a perfect night for a ball game, and I like the new ballpark, although it does lack the considerable character of the old Durham Athletic Park “the “DAP”, and by character I mean smelly toilets.
I’ve never been a huge baseball fan, but I did have a Baseball Week sometime in the early ’90s. I left my office in Durham one summer evening and for some reason decided to drive to the DAP. It was a weeknight and I got a seat right behind the plate, had a hot dog and a beer or three and had a perfectly pleasant time. The next night as I was leaving work I couldn’t think of a single reason not to do it again. Of course, after the second night that meant I had to be there for every night of the home stand against Kinston, and I was. I think the Bulls won, or possibly lost.
Oh, hey. When did Wool E. Bull start tear-assing around the diamond in a little car? Between that and shooting rolled-up t-shirts into the crowd with a cannon in the shape of a hot dog, that looks like a pretty cool job. Except for having to wear the costume, which probably gets pretty hot. Hmm. I guess without the costume, you’d get in a lot of trouble driving around on the field and shooting things at people.
Special thanks and a tip of the Plooble hat to Jerry who discovered that the “E in Wool E. Bull officially stands for “education” That would have been my second guess, after “Ewww, does anybody smell wet mascot? I’m sure thousands of kids over the years have been encouraged to stay in school knowing that the middle name of the giant frightening thing that forcibly hugged them at the ball game is “education” Just like A.B. Cardinal has no doubt kept scores of kids off the booze.
It was kind of a slow game, and around the seventh inning our attention waned considerably. We noticed when the players at bat step out to the plate, the sound system plays a little snippet of a song, presumably chosen by the player. “The only one anyone in my group can remember is “Crazy Train”” This naturally led me, Jean and Jerry to discuss what our at-bat theme song would be. Jerry chose “Girl, You’ll Be a Woman Soon and Jean wants “Loser” I think I’d pick “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now” You?