4.25.02 PITTSBURGH
PIRATES vs LOS ANGELES DODGERS,
ERIE SEAWOLVES vs READING PHILLIES
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You might remember that after my first visit
to Pittsburgh’s spectacular new PNC Park last year I bitched about the
locals’ ignorant and unfunny remarks regarding former Dodger hurler Chan
Ho Park. Imagine my disbelief then, when, while driving away from an otherwise
unremarkable ballgame today, I found the postgame report on the AM and heard
this:
“…and then you got the Dodgers’ Jewish left fielder,
Shawn Green, who went 1-for-4. I mean, what, is it Yom Kippur or something?
One-for-four?”
Oh boy.
You’re down to your last strike, Shittsburgh. Fucking amazing.
Anyway, I haven’t yet mentioned a change to our household this off-season
that bears some relevance to the project at hand. Back in October, with America
still reeling from the attacks on its shores and responding the best way it
knows how—by unleashing the full fury of its consumer might—we did
our patriotic duty by going out and finally replacing the door-handles/windshield-washers/seatbelts-not-working
deathtrap Volkswagen Fox that my wife had been driving since college. We bought
a brand new Saab.
It’s a funny thing, after spending so long puttering around in the permanently
filthy, be-dented, decrepit and wholly undignified Fox, to find oneself strapped
into the sybaritic opulence of the Saab, the accoutrements and general roadworthiness
of which signify to me a level of adulthood from which I feel several decades
yet removed. Not that I’m complaining, mind you. They can have my heated leather
seats when they pry them from my cold, dead buttocks.
Among the Saab’s more egregious features though is something called OnStar,
a sort of on-board concierge that GM stuffs into any vehicle with pretensions
to luxury. Press a button on the console and in moments one is connected to
a live operator with a GPS reading of your location and virtual omniscience
at his or her fingertips. Lost? Looking for a decent meal? A clean place to
crash for the evening? Tickets to the opera? Suicide counseling? Just press
the button!
It costs some ridiculous amount of money to subscribe to the service, of
course, but as with most things this insidious, the first taste is free. Only
problem was, six months after buying the car and six months into our complimentary
first year of OnStar, we’d yet to have occasion to use it. Or, if we
had, we still found it difficult to entirely forsake common sense for twenty-first
century convenience and actually press the button when we knew it would just
take ten seconds to determine our location using the old-fashioned analog
map sitting in the door pocket. I guess that, cellphones and cable modems
and digital everything else aside, we’re just not what the marketers
would call “early adopters.”
Today, however, I took my first bold step into the future. And I have to
admit, it was kinda cool.
I was heading north on I-79, about half an hour outside of Erie, and about
to call my wife to let her know what time I’d be home when several things
occurred to me at once. The Pirates game having been a matinee, it was now
a little after five. I was dimly aware that there is a Double-A team in Erie.
Pittsburgh had been a spur-of-the-moment, decide-the-night-before kind of
thing; otherwise I might have thought of this earlier and checked to see if
schedules matched and the timing would work. I hadn’t, though, and now
here I was in the middle of nowhere, a little cranky from having sat through
a lethargic Dodgers performance and being subjected to the Pittsburghisms
mentioned earlier, the only resources available to me being a cellphone and
… well now, wait just a minute here …
Seconds later a disembodied voice came through the car’s speakers. “Thanks
for using OnStar,” it said cheerfully. “This is Eric! How can I
help you?”
I’m wondering, I ventured dubiously, if you can tell me whether there is
a minor league baseball game tonight in Erie, Pennsylvania. It seemed as though
I could just as well be asking who speaks the first line in Act III of King
Lear, or for the combined mass of Jupiter’s moons.
Eric asked if I knew the name of the team, or the ballpark. Might be the
Sea-somethings, was all I could tell him. “I’m going to transfer
you to our concierge,” he said.
Quickly, another cheerful voice came through the speakers, identifying itself
as Steven. Seconds later, Steven was telling me that the Detroit Tiger-affiliate
Erie SeaWolves were indeed playing host tonight to the Reading Phillies, that
the game started at 6:35, that Jerry Uht Park was located in downtown Erie
at 110 East 10th Street, and that, if I’d like, he could reserve tickets for
me. Um, that probably won’t be necessary, Steven, but thanks.
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Soon I was rolling through Erie, Pennsylvania, which is one of those mysteriously
medium-sized towns that seem to exist for no other reason than that towns
of this size occur at regular geographic intervals and, well, there should
be one here. Not a knock on it, by any means. I love towns like this. Double-A
kinda towns. Leave your affectations at the door.
If the mostly concrete Jerry Uht Park isn’t the most charming of downtown
ballparks, it’s at least an exceptionally friendly one, and the funky two-tiered
stands along the first base line, necessitated by the stadium’s proximity
to the street, make for a unique vantage point. Sitting in the front row of
the upper deck, one enjoys a pressbox-level view of the field, but from nearly
close enough to look down into the dugout. Unfortunately, this Tiger Stadium-like
perch just meant I got that much better a look when, with two out and one
on in the bottom of the first, burly SeaWolves first baseman Charlie Carter
sent a line drive rocketing down the left field line and off the skull of
third base coach (and SeaWolves manager) Kevin Bradshaw.
The guy was out before he hit the ground. Fifteen minutes later, the crowd
would manage a smattering of applause as Bradshaw’s stretcher was wheeled
into a waiting ambulance, which seemed a little weird. I mean, I understand
the impulse, but what exactly are you cheering for in a case like this? The
guy could’ve been dead for all we knew. As it turned out, he’d suffered only
a concussion and would be held overnight at the hospital for observation,
but the lack of an announcement to that effect at the stadium made for an
oddly uncomfortable night in Erie.
That, and the fact that it was about forty degrees with a bitch of a wind blowing. Spring, anyone?
FINAL SCORES: PIRATES 3, DODGERS 2; SEAWOLVES 8, PHILLIES 0
LIFE DURING WARTIME: Before she launched into a rendition of the national anthem that would have embarrassed freaking Wayne Newton, the platinum-blonde lounge lizard doing the honors turned toward the crowd behind home plate, raised one fist triumphantly in the air, and hissed through gritted Clint Eastwood teeth, “God bless America!”