Metadish, Fresh from NYC

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Ah, baseball!! The wonderful springtime tradition as the boys of summer hop in their limos and have their chauffeur’s drive them to the stadium for a game. What a week it has been already, the Mets just finished a wonderful week at Shea, going 4 and 1, and even giving us a touch of nostalgia as Billy Wagner did an Armando Benitez impression for the team’s only loss.

The Bombers on the other hand started out 2 and 4, and limp home to thee House That Ruth Built for a quick 3 against the Royals. (Pay close attention to the Royals’ roster, as anyone even remotely good will be on a New York team come the spring of ’08.) The Royals should be the cure for what ails the Yanks; after all, they’ve been the AL tomato can for almost 10 years now.

Opening day used to be a wonderful event. Father’s and sons going to the ballpark, Jr. having a soda while dad downs 14 warm beers from a soggy paper cup. Now it has all changed – it’s been commercialized. Every minute corner of the game has a sponsor.

In fact this column is sponsored by Viagra. Viagra, providing couch potatoes with major league wood since 1995.

All this trendyness started with the bobble head doll, which is the ultimate useless item. At least with ball day you could play catch, and after bat day you could get on the subway and do an impression of the Baseball Furies from the Warriors. The only way a bobble-head doll is useful is if you’re the first to get it on E-Bay.
Or if it was a bobble head blow up doll — a life-size blow up doll of your favorite porn stars with bobble head action.

There are just too many give aways now. Like Keyspan Key Chain Night, bobble head dolls, underprivileged children night — every fan attending the game gets an underprivileged child.

Sally Struthers throws out the first pitch.

The stadium has gotten too trendy .I was at the game; the ice cream guy came around. Hagen Daze– Hagen Daze! Hagen Daze at the ballpark? Where’s the cup with the half chocolate and half vanilla? And the wooden spoon — Remember those little wooden spoons? They don’t give those out anymore because they’re afraid that the people at the ballpark are going to use them as weapons. What is this a prison? I’m sharpening my ice cream spoon so I can shank the guy in the box seat next to me!

Amazing, they won’t give us wooden spoons at the ball park, but they’ll give 40,000 people bats and put them on the subway after the game. You come across a Red Sox Fan on your way home and it’s baby seal season. I think they need to rethink that.

Baseball is part of my life. It is my one family tradition. Of course most of the older members of my family were Brooklyn Dodger fans, and apparently if it weren’t for the fact that he’s already dead, they’d love to beat the crap out of Branch Rickey. Here’s how rabid they were, Ebbets Field was torn down 4 years before I was born, but my family talks so much about the park, I have memories of it.

The big thing for my dad was Carl Furillo. The legend was out of control. “The Arm!

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