April 3: Hustle

• Florida ------- 9
• Washington -- 3

Attendance dropped by half from the Opening Day game, and it's looking pretty grim. I made round after round of the lower deck, and still sold only 5 and a half cases. And this was just the second game of the year. Isn't the excitement still supposed to be there for the first night game of the season?

I have my back turned away from the field during most of the game, so I miss almost all of it. I'll steal a glance at the board just to check the inning, but most often I have no idea of the score. I'm turned to the people in the seats, scanning hundreds of faces for a taker, or at least a sign of interest. Peanuts? Crackerjack? Ice cold Beer? When I get a sale, I run up to them, set down the case, and drop down to my knees so I don't block the view. Then run the routine of the serve: open, pour, send them down the row, collect the money, make change.

Even though I can't see what's happening, I still get a sense of it; the expectant lean forward and hopefulness of a crowd seeing its team ahead, the scowling, arms folded disapproval of people that are watching a mess on the field. This game it wasn't until the third inning that I took a look at the scoreboard. I was pouring a couple on my knees, and I looked up to see rows of people throwing up their hands in despair.

"What happened?" I asked my customer. "They score?"

Yeah, another one.

So I whipped around to see how bad it was. Five to nothing, Nationals in the hole.

"Five runs! They scored five runs?" My customer nodded sadly. "I didn't know it was that bad. And it's only the third?" He nodded again.

"Geez," I said. "I'm glad I'm facing this way."

And I was. I'm really not a fan of baseball until the playoffs anyway; I love the long season for all those chances to vend, but can't maintain interest in box scores or batting averages or pitch after pitch for 162 games. And I enjoy the view of the people more anyway. So many faces to take in, even if they're scowling.

One season ticketholder in the 100's down the third baseline -- who's there for almost every game, and never buys a single beer from me -- was in shock, and maybe denial.

"They're really not this bad!" she said. "We saw them in Spring Training, and they're so much better than this...." Which I hope is true, or else this young season will be a long one indeed.

Even during a slow night like this, there's still enough to keep me entertained. When the game was almost over I ran up to a group of tourists in the last couple of rows of the 300 section waving peanuts and sold a bag to the kid of the group. I'd already made change and was getting set to toss them over, when the parents are saying, no no he wanted Crackerjack! And here I was, plumb out and I have their six bucks already. So what could I do? I ran all the way down the steps to the aisle, back down the first baseline, around behind home, up the third baseline, back up the steps to the closest restock room, and poked my head in for a one-bag exchange. All out.

So I bolted back down to the 200 level where they could make the exchange but they yelled at me to hurry up because they all wanted to close up and go home. Back down into the stands and around the lower bowl, and I'm getting closer and I see they're cheering the effort. And I'm back up the steps with my arms stretched up, then drop dramatically down to one knee like James Brown mocking exhaustion, then pop up and toss the kid that big fat bag of Jack. And the kid is entertained and the parents are applauding. Who needs a game when you can have so much dumb fun in the stands?