Baseball, a sport designed for beer!

Well, I have now seen my first ever live game of baseball. I don't think I'll be a convert.

After the shenanigans of the night before, it took us a bit of time to become fully human again (soakage and Red Bull was needed!), and so the day was spent in low-key mode, as we knew we'd need our energy for the baseball game that night (the original reason for me to come over to the US!). In the afternoon we went looking at Condos with K's mom (they're buying one), and headed to Miller Stadium around 3ish for tailgating.

For those who haven't been to a baseball game, tailgating is a big BBQ party you have in the parking lot (or as we yuropeens call it, the "car park" :-P ) outside the stadium. Basically, you pull up in a few jeeps/SUV's, unload a BBQ or two and a few kegs of beer, and lay into them. Another friend of mine has been tailgating down in Virginia(?), and they do the normal BBQ thing of steak, burgers, ribs, chicken etc, but Milwaukee had a big German immigrant population, so we had Bratwurst! And Bratwurst is good - got about 3 big fuck-off german sausages in a bun, with Sauerkraut, Ketchup and that piss-weak yellow stuff americans call "mustard"! I also managed to choke down some more beer, and after the first the rest seemed to go down OK again. At the start I knew no-one htere apart from K and her folks, but later on a few of the crowd fomrt eh night before arrived, so that made things less socially awkward for me.

We finally managed to make our way into the game, about half an hour after it started, and it became evident nearly as soon as we sat down that what was actually happneing on the pitch was nearly incidental to the whole "baseball experience". It reminded me of the Simpsons episode where Homer goes off the drink, and realises when he goes to a game that baseball really sucks! For every bit like you see on TV where someone actualy hits something, there's a lot of not very much going on. About the only way you could stay 100% interested in the game would be if you're one of them sad anorak types who's seriously into their statistics (batting average etc). Luckily tho, we didnt have to stay sober! I spent a lot of time chatting to Devrah (who was damn cute, but taken), who seemed to only know slightly more about the rules of the game than I did, and about half-way throught the 5th(?) inning we got bored and went down to the gift shop to do some shopping! Unfortunately, she had to take a potty break, and so while I was awaiting for her we had the only home run of the game :-( Whenever the Brewers score a home run, their mascot (Bernie the Brewer), slides down a slide into a giant mug of beer, but we missed that as it happened pretty much directly over our heads.

At the start of the 7th inning, we were treated to the sausage race. Apparently it's a permanent fixture in Miller Park that you have 4 guys dressed as a Bratwurst, an Italian sausage, a French sausage and a Chorizo race each other between 3rd base and home plate. There's nearly a s much excitement about this as the result of the actual game itself! I put my money in the Italian, and surely enough, we had an Azurri victory! Easiest buck I ever made! :-) Next year apparently they'll have a Polish sausage racing as well, so will have to go back to see that.

After the 7th inning, we discovered that one of K's workmates had tickets to get into the VIP lounge at the top of the stadium, so we "borrowed" them and headed on up for a look. Unfortunately they close the bars after the 7th and so we were a few mins late to get any of the fancy (and I'm sure over-priced) drinks there, but at least the view was good. The crowd really only started getting into the game in the last inning, when it was obvious that Milwaukee were going to beat the "old enemy" the Chicago Cubs by 6 to 3 (but don't ask me how they got the scores!). Things sort of wound down from there, as I we couldn't go out mad celebrating due to (a) still being a tad tired form the night before and (b) having to get up at 5am to take my flight to Boston. So, a nice chilled end to a mad few days!