# 1425: Rox-A-Bye Baybee Suite

I love the Brockton Rox...in fact, we're going to a game this coming Sunday. I was afraid to go to their ballpark at first, because they used to have a radio jungle with the line "Campanelli Stadium, where kids rule..." But I have to try every ballpark around here at least once, and I was pleasantly surprised. We've been there several times now, and as long as we sit in the box seats, the sprog problem is nowhere near as bad as at some other minor league parks we've been to.

Yes, there are lots of sprogs there, but they must enfoce the rules or something, because very few of them run wild...they sit in the seats with their parents and pretty much behave. I don't mind being around kids as long as they ar not being annoying.

The Britney thing is yet another publicity stunt...the Rox have become known for silly stuff like this. Last year, when Theo Epstein left the Red Sox GM postion, the Rox offered that position in their organization to him. They also offered former Sox/Yankee/maybe Houston Astros pitcher Roger Clemens a contract. In both of these cases, they KNOW that neither will accept, because they don't have the money that these guys are used to making.

I am annoyed over this Britney thing, though. Although chances are good that the trashy slut and her loaf and a half will never come, I am annoyed that they are using this to promote that stupid loaf suite. I guess it's good that there is a place to take squalling loaves so that the rest of us to not have to hear them. But I don't like the idea of ENCOURAGING breeders to bring loaves to ball games. I personally believe that the only people who should go to ball games are those who are old enough to understand what's going on, on the field. That would exclude toadlers and even some younger school age kids. I can live with that!

Another dumb thing that Campanelli Staudium had last year: we were at a game, and between innings, they were advertising a Def Leppard concert to be held there later in the summer. The dumb part was that they said that kids 12 and under get in free with adult admission. Who in the fuckity-fuck-fuck-FUCK would take kids to a Def Leppard concert anyway? I'm not a DL fan myself, but son't they have explicit lyrics and such? It just doesn't strike me as an appropriate thing to take kids to.

But you know how it is. Offer kids _____ free, and the breeders are all over it like flies on shit.

Finally, speaking of minor league ballparks...to my CF friends in the Boston area...NEVER, EVER, EVER go to a Lowell Spinners game. That ballpark is hell on earth, as it is always infested with feral sproggen that no one bothers to control...not even the ushers. We gave it a few chances, since they are single-A Red Sox, but soon figured out that this is how the place is all the fucking time. I feel sorry for the guys who have to play there, as it's impossible to watch a game there due to the excessive amount of badly behaved sproggen. We've never been able to enjoy a game there.

It's a shame, because LeLacheur Park is a nice ballpark, and there's a great brewpub a few blocks away. But we will NEVER go there again!

This is why I'm glad I go to hockey games, everyone is really absorbed into the game (including kids), cheering, or just plain drunk (and I mean most of us forget half the words to O Canada by the time they're singing in, and "drop the puck" is the last line, I swear.). It's also so hard to get tickets for the NHL games that the very few people that bring kids to it make sure the kids know it's something special. The kids also are ones that are old enough to know what's going on and are there for the hockey. Also, hard to worry about some kid making noise when there are actual flamethrowers going off and there's a good fight going on the ice.

I think part of the problem with baseball games is that they take all day, are pretty slow, and you're sitting out in the heat and sun all day. That would make me fussy and cranky enough. :p

Whenever I have attended a AAA gime of the Buffalo Bisons, the children have mostly been well behaved. Having a child announcer for three innings on Sunday afternoon games can get grating, though. Even though it is a Family Day at the ballpark, I want to hear Jon Summers announcing.

Dunno about any Sabres games, but they are 1-2 in the current game. They will hopefully come back from that.

Gleepy...the Bisons make you hear the brat announcer for THREE innings? My DOG...some of the ballparks we go to only have it for ONE inning, and that is annoying enough.

I especially hate it when: 1. the sprog cannot pronounce the players' names properly, and 2. it sounds like the sprog is being led to its final meal before execution. Imagine a sproggy voice saying something like "now batting, the designated hitter, David Ortiz" in a tone of voice that reminds you of Eeyore in the Winnie the Pooh cartoons. It almost always sounds as if the kid would rather be anywhere else but in the booth. What a fucking waste!

Most of these stupid brats could not care less about the game or know who the players are...it's all about breeder attention-whoring.

That would be awful.

The only time I've ever actually cooed over kids (yes, me) was in-between periods at a Calgary Flames game (I was drunk anyways by then). They brought out two teams of 5 year old kids who were just getting started into hockey (that's the right age to start, any later and it's too late), and got them to play a mini-game on a section of the ice. It actually was cute, since they looked like puppies, all skating to one end of the ice, falling down, then skating to the other end and all falling down. Why was it cute? Well, those kids are going to be raised with hockey and are going to love it. Anything to get more people into hockey is fine with me (not really a big problem anyways here in Calgary).

So, shh...that's one of my awful secrets, I actually cooed over kids. But some morose kid mispronouncing "Kiprusoff" would have me throwing my beer over the glass.

What is it with hockey fans and kids, anyway?

I have a good RL friend who is CF. She is also a rabid hockey fan. She was at some game where they featured sproglings in hockey garb, playing, during a between-period break.

She, too, cooed over the kids, and I was afraid for a bit that she might be tempted to cross over to the The Dark Side. How CUUUTE it would be to have a kid of my own to dress up in hockey gear!

Luckily, she got over it. She'd make a shitty parent, anyway, and she knows it. And I'd hate to lose the one CF RL friend I have left to sprogging!

But nothing wrong with cooing over kids that you don't have to take home!

Hockey overrides everything in Canada, including a lot of personal values. Pacifists will be screaming for a fight, CFers will be cooing over kids that they would scowl at off ice, anti-brand people will slap team logos over everything, teetoalers will be shelling out six bucks for pissy Molson. Hockey's like that. You can hypnotise most Canadians by putting a hockey game on.

It's the hockey moms that are fucking CRAZY. Think of the over-intensity of soccer moms, only fueled by the tiny tiny chance that their son may actually make the NHL. It was a huge issue with hockey parents swearing at refs at their 6 year old's hockey game.