Tuesday, April 13, 2010

You've Gotta Love America's Pastime


One of the cooler things I have done in my professional life (it felt weird to write that) was work as an intern with a minor league affiliate of the Baltimore Orioles. For those of you that have never been to a minor league game, let me just tell you that it is night and day compared to going to Camden Yards.

Yeah the sport is the same, but the atmosphere is much different. In order to get butts in the seats, the teams run all kinds of crazy promotions and let like 300 people throw out the "first pitch" before a game. While I was there we had Tennis Ball Madness, where you would hurl numbered tennis balls into hula hoops on the field in an attempt to win cash and prizes; a Chik-Fil-A promotion where blindfolded contestants would try to find and tackle a 10-foot-tall inflatable cow by using the crowd noise as a guide; and a host of Little League nights and fireworks shows.

We also had one guy that wanted to have a cow-milking race behind home plate. This was obviously a bad idea for a number of logistical reasons including but not limited to: 1) Cows are slow and will hold up the start of the game and 2) Cow shit everywhere. Thankfully, this idea did not get off the ground thanks to the firm refusal of our groundskeeper.

This little video I have posted kind of typefies my experience in the minor leagues. This could very well have happened in our stadium. I'm not sure our PA guys would have been quick enough to start playing "Yakkity Sax" while the dog was running around.

Now you may ask "Prince Matt, would you have been the intern catching the dog or cleaning up the shit?"

To which I would answer "Neither. I would have been the intern hiding in the press box with the local newspaper guys eating free hot dogs and laughing at the people cleaning up the shit."

It was a pretty sweet gig.

4 comments:

  1. Dogs have no shame. That was wonderful.

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  2. When you gotta go, you gotta go. It's great that he stopped in the middle of hot pursuit to pop a squat.

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  3. Have I ever told you about the Target Pooper? A woman I used to work with was at a Target with her daughter and granddaughter and as they were about to enter the store a heavy set woman came busting out of the front doors, dropped her pants down to her ankles and, pooed right there on the sidewalk and then ran away screaming. True story.

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  4. No, you've never mentioned that to me. If I were you I would lead off most conversations with it.

    Aren't the toilets right near the door at most Targets? I realize we're not dealing with a rational being, but even that is a bit much.

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