March 31: Exhibition Game

• Baltimore ---- 6
• Washington -- 3

The baseball season hasn't started yet, but the vending season began today. Because if there are people in the stadium, then there is beer to be sold. Even at an exhibition game.

So I -- The Beerman -- roused myself from an early spring slumber and headed to the ballpark, wedging myself onto a subway car loaded with Cherry Blossom tourists who will likely never see the city beyond the Mall, and made my sleepy way crosstown, back to RFK stadium, where something resembling a game of baseball was played. A scattering of customers showed up to watch, only partly filling the lower deck and lightly dotting the upper tier (Official Attendance: 14,940/Capacity: 45,016). Only a skeleton crew of vendors bothered to show up; everyone knew this would be a weak day money and that this game wouldn't count towards sales totals. So we showed up, listened to a few announcements from the boss, and began to work.

I grabbed a bucket, loaded it up with a couple of cases of beer and ice, slung a sack full of crackerjack and peanuts over my shoulder, and headed out into the lower deck. I started all the way at the end of the third base line, and made my way row by row around the horseshoe of the seating. I'd call out and sell one here or there, but no one seemed too interested in buying on a cool, overcast day. Occasionally I'd hit a sale of six or eight at a time, but mostly the vend was a series of lurching starts and stops, a fumble with the bucket and a dropped bag of peanuts. Never fully connecting with the people, and never quite awaking from my winter sleep. I'd look around and think, is Winter really over? Am I really here?

Stadium management has also decided, for reasons unknown by us, to switch from plastic bottles to aluminum cans this year, which creates the extra hassle of pouring into cups and toting around the empties. This is de rigeur at many stadiums, but we had it easy with bottles that could be popped open and handed over. I was just happy I'd brought a can opener, or the even more of the foam would have ended up on the ground. For shame.

But this is exhibition, and the season is as clear as the freshly scrubbed floor of the stadium. Nothing counts, the odometers have rolled back to zero for us -- it's as much a warm up for us as it is for the men on the field. Any day that you can end up with more money in your pocket than you started out with is a good one, and the time to awake is Opening Day.


Dialogue of the game:

The vendor behind me in the check-in line kept loudly announcing, “This is an Exhibition Game. This is an Exhibition Game. This is an Exhibition Game….” He repeated this eight or nine times, his mind caught in a loop.

“Yes, this is just an Exhibition Game,” I told him.

“This is an Exhibition Game,” he said again. “This is an Exhibition Game.”

“That’s right,” I said, trying to get him to skip to the next track. “Just an Exhibition Game.”

He stopped and looked at me. Then he asked, “What’s an Exhibition Game?”