Last night’s Greensboro Grasshoppers game was excellent. Derick and Scarlet The Amazing Scarletto were there because her engineering society had an event there, so Derick filled his four season seats with me, Butts, Noodles, and Cravens. Thursday night games are “Thirsty Thursdays”, featuring $1 drafts from the local brew pub Natty Greene’s. Good times are guaranteed.
We lost 7 to 5 in the 10th inning. After a lot of heavy-artillery games we’ve seen there, it was fun to watch some batters get a piece of the ball for a change. There were two HRs (both theirs–and one of them brought in three runs) and a ground-rule double (theirs). I’ve yet to see the Hoppers win a game, and last night was their fourth straight loss, and the first time in the three-year history of the team they’ve had less than a .500 record. They’re currently 49-50 on the whole season and 12-15 for the second half.
Just before the third inning (and toward the end of the second beer), a girl in a Grasshoppers shirt came up to us needing players for one of the stupid between-inning games. We all looked at each other and said, “sure!” Next thing we know, we’re down in the bowels of the ballpark being suited up as hamburger buns.
This game is a race to build a giant hamburger. Noodles, my partner, flops down on the field in his bun. I race back and forth between him and a pile of giant foam burger parts–lettuce, cheese, patty, bacon–and make a burger piece by piece, and when I’m done, I flop on him and be the top bun. I won on a sort of technicality–Cravens, who was the runner on the Derick-Cravens team, forgot the patty and flopped prematurely, making his burger a veggie burger. Video was taken and will be posted.
On the way back to my house (a convenient four-block stumble from the park) we hit the Westerwood Tavern, a neighborhood bar that is a convenient halfway point. We played some very bad pool, drank some more beer, and then moseyed back to my place, were everyone had parked. Good times all around!
UPDATE: Duuuude! I forgot to mention that while we were in the chute, dressed like buns, chatting with “Spaz”, the MC for the silly games, there was a photographer from the News and Record there and… Today we’re on the front page of the sports section! Here’s the article online! Sweeeeet!
