Beer Ten Thousand

Beer number 10,000 was a Michelob Ultra.

After enduring a rainout and a double header with less than spectacular sales, we finally made it to Thirsty Thursday. The magic number had been reduced to 29 and it was a given that it would happen today. 29 beers on a $2 Thursday would be easy as pie… sweet delicious pie.

My sister had rounded up her friends and we were definitely going to finally put this milestone behind me.

The staff was ready and had put together an announcement.

The fans were ready as I was constantly approached with “did you do it yet?”

The ushers were all aware and ready for it to happen.

Shaun in the kitchen was following along to see who it was going to be.

The GNO girls were buying beers trying to be the one.

My best customer Paul didn’t care if it was him… I’m pretty sure he has bought a thousand off me this year and deserves an award himself.

Another great pair of customers Ray and Kari bought four trying to be the one…

They were close.

I was choked up when I sold it. It seemed perfectly fitting that the couple who bought it was celebrating their 26th wedding anniversary. They told me they had been out to the park for Thirsty Thursday before and had even bought beer from me on occasion. I’m sorry to say I didn’t remember them… but I will from now on.

It was raining and the field was drenched. It was also fitting that the game was eventually rained out and I was soaked to the bone. After the rain out, I made my round of regular bars but none of my regular bartenders were working and my favorite crew at Friday’s were all out of commission due to their bar championships earlier in the day, so I ended the day all alone telling my story to a nice couple of fill-in bartenders from Fort Myers. They were very nice and even gave me a little crown to celebrate. I overtipped on the way out.

It left me some quiet time to reflect on the year and the milestone that was reached. I can’t believe it went so fast. It has been a great year of selling beer for a great organization. Ripken baseball has hired all the right people for each and every job. It has been a joy dealing with customers and I really can’t remember more than a handful of unhappy patrons.

Tomorrow is the first playoff game in the team’s history. It may well be the last game of the season as the remaining two games are on the road. I’m sure it will come and go with little fanfare but after the game I will take a moment to watch them hose down the mound and sweep clean the basepaths, like I usually do. I will sit quietly as the cleaning crew does the final cleaning of the year and I will watch the cathedral slip quietly into silence. I will sell my final beer of the season to myself and I will wait patiently for Spring Training to start in February.

Thank you to everyone who made the year a memorable one. Thank you Joe Hart for being a great GM and putting out a product we can be proud of. Thank you Nick for being an awesome boss, who kicked me when I needed kicked and patted me on the back when no-one else did. Thank you to EVERY one of the ushers who were all an awesome group of people. They made every lap around the stadium fun. I will miss you all and hope that you will come and see me at the Broad Street Bar. Thanks to all the kitchen staff and runners/servers. We all worked together in the heat of the commissary and made it through the war as a team. Thanks to the parking crew who made me smile as I strolled in late. Thanks to the crew in the store, the bartenders in the tiki bar, the ticket office, the interns whose names I never learned but consider friends nonetheless.

I’d also like to thank Broad Street Bar and Grill/Treasure Lanes for donating a gift certificate to patron 10K, as did TGIFridays. I’d also like to thank Peace River Distributing and Budweiser for their donation. I’d like to thank Leslie and Eric Gowdy for donating a round of golf at KingsGate and Waterlefe, and of course the Charlotte County Stone Crabs and Ripken Baseball for giving me the opportunity to sell 10,000 beers.
Thank You Dan and Bobbie Durso from North Port!

I decided to give a little back by donating all of my tips on the last game of the season to Dollars for Mammograms, a non-profit charity which supplies mammograms for under and non-insured women of Charlotte County. It has been a favorite charity of my sister and the girls of GNO, who have always been supportive in everything I do.
It worked out well as tips were very good for the day. The charity was happy and I felt good. I was especially touched by those who gave money without buying anything. I was however a tad bit “uneasy” about the number of people who said I looked good in my pink shirt. Maybe it would have been better if more of them were women and not men? Personally, I felt like the big pink elephant in the room…



Pretty in Pink?

A Few Good Beers

What a busy week this could be.

For those of you who aren’t in constant touch with me, here’s a brief explanation of where I happen to be in this wacky world of Fungus/Beerman/Davey.

I was blessed enough to get the opportunity once again to be the mobile beverage dispenser at Charlotte County Stadium, not just for the local minor league Charlotte Stone Crabs but also for the AL champion Tampa Bay Rays. Some days I have help from the professional vendors from the Trop in Tampa, but most days it’s just me.

If you’ve been to a game this year, you’ve seen me. So far, I’ve missed only one game, and the day following that game I was bombarded with so many complaints about taking the day off, that I knew it would be my only one. No worries… because I am a trooper. Besides, on my off day, I missed the park as much as it missed me.

The weather has not proved as cooperative as it could be for this inaugural season. I’ve spent many days soaking wet yelling through the raindrops and I’ve been drenched most nights either from humidity or precipitation. I’ve spent every night following a game doing laundry, since I only have one shirt. We’ve seen some extremely hot days and have had our share of older fans overcome by heat, but that’s all part of the price to live in Paradise.

Sound like a fun job?

I love it.

I love everything about it. I love feeling tired at the end of the day. I love trying to make everyone happy and providing an atmosphere where the fans feel like they’ve gotten entertained and not cheated out of their hard earned dollars. I love the staff. I love the regulars. I love the ballpark.

Part of my duty (yes Box… I said duty) is to keep track of my sales. My paycheck is commission based and therefore calculated from the totals. In case you were wondering, YES… I DO ACCEPT TIPS! I know beers are pricey at $5 each but I do have a large dog to feed. Anyway, this means that from Day 1 of Spring Training I’ve had my beer total noted on my calendar. One day a while back I got curious and decided to add it all up.

I was amazed by the sum.

Some time in this upcoming homestand, barring a hurricane or plague, I will sell beer number 10,000.

Ten thousand bottles of beer…

Think about that for a while.

160,000 ounces… 413 cases… 1,250 gallons… 83 half barrels?… 10,000 bottle caps twisted off…

10,000 mostly happy people.

I remember some of the good ones and some of the bad ones too. Some have fallen to the ground and been replaced. Some have been to family and close friends. Some have been to weathered veterans and even a couple to a stripper on her 21st birthday (bought by her mother). Many have been to regulars who buy at almost every game and many were to people I met once and will probably never see again.

But EVERY one was a joy…

Even the difficult ones with no tip.

I’ll post the running total in the side bar so you can all follow along. I’m planning on taking a camera that day and writing a press release celebrating beer 10k so everyone will know when it is and who buys it.

Thanks to all involved.

Stay tuned for the next blog where I’ll be promoting the grand opening of the Broad Street Bar and Grill, a new deck bar in town that has decided it’s in their best interest to hire two fat guys to bartend.

Honestly… what could they have been thinking???

The grand opening party is all weekend August 28 to 30. Come on out!

FYI… the tagline at the bar says it all.



NOTE: I had to remove and reinstall the poll due to the fact that the moron who developed it could not spell. If you voted and it doesn't appear, please vote again.

Perspective

Tonight’s post has a lot to do with the ballpark. It was a busy Wed. night…. Not according to management, or ticket takers or ushers or parking… but it was a good night to me. Apparently we had beer drinkers.

I like beer drinkers. They are happy… for the most part.

Yesterday I caught my second foul ball. I felt bad and gave it to the guy I stole it from. It’s not the ball that gets me; it’s the thrill of the athletic ability to time the catch.

No one at this park knows that I once played in a state championship… that I should have played in college… that I could have played at this level…

Perspective.

Tonight our home team blew a 3-1 lead in the ninth. I bought our pitching coach a beer afterwards, because I knew he thought it was his fault we lost, but more so because I just like him. He felt like he was to blame because it was his decision to put in the new guy… 3-1 lead in the ninth….

Perspective.

I love the park. I love my job.

I meet so many fun people. I meet interns who are just getting out of college and working for peanuts. I meet people trying to climb the ladder into major league baseball. I meet young girls chasing future stars. I meet fans, trying to get autographs. I meet …

Everyone.

And I love it.

Perspective.

I tried to tell Bill our pitching coach that for every one we lose… we win one we shouldn’t have. That’s life too. Sometimes it just doesn’t matter what choice you make…

One of my favorite lines from a movie is from Remember the Titans…

Coach Boone’s wife says, “Sometimes life is hard, for no reason at all”

That’s perspective.

And sometimes… we just get that good day. We get the rainbow. We get to see the osprey fly into the left field lightpost carrying a fish. We see the awesome catch and the comeback.

Perspective…

When I was in high school I lived close to my high school. I never missed a day of high school and I was the first one there every day, mainly because I love my friends… they are my family.
I remember driving to the school one afternoon and sitting in left field, past the foul pole, all alone. I remember thinking (at 18) if I was ever to be buried somewhere, this would be it. They had just mowed the grass and it was heaven. There was a grove of three evergreens there and the view overlooked the valley.
I am now almost 30 years older and I had that same feeling tonight. After the game, the cleaning crew sees me sitting in the stands and we joke and laugh about making me leave and go home… but to me…

it’s all perspective….

Some of the people I have met when I played ball in high school are still friends of mine that read this blog… and some of the new friends who read this I will have just met this year… but they are all friends.

And good ones at that.

Perspective.

Yes… we lost tonight, but I feel lucky because I seem to win every night.

Happy birthday Dawn, I luv ya Keith, I miss ya Big Jim, You are the best bartender (without a doubt Mary), Go Vols (for Nick), I’ve been crushing on you for 30 years Kim, Thanks Ray for ending Beercott 2009, Stick with the school Box, Luv ya Sis and Nipper and GNO and this could go on and on…

And this was supposed to be a post about getting to beer 10,000 at the park…

To be continued?

I’ll end with a picture.

This was a regular when I was working for the Redfish. I remember him because he always smiled and he was always happy. His name was Jay and he always had his boy JJ with him…
He was killed in a car accident a couple weeks back.
I did not know him all that well, and he probably only knew me as beerman… yet it has me in tears because he was a good soul and I miss him.

Perspective.

The Perfect Redneck Moment

A sign from above said it was time.


I’ve been blocked for months.


Oh, I have had plenty to write about but just haven’t felt the proper motivation…


Until today.


I’ve had plenty of stories to tell…


I’m back doing what I love (selling beer at the ballpark); I’m still doing all kinds of silly things while drinking beer with Box. We’ve traveled across the country, from Washington to St. Augustine in a 22 foot truck full of furniture, complete with awesome pictures from Mt. Rushmore, Budweiser in St. Louis, Sturgis, the Corn Palace in Iowa, GRACELAND (capitalized for reverence), Beale St., New Orleans, and even a Testicle Festival sign in Wyoming.


I’ve met celebrities like Cal Ripken Jr. and Jamie Lee Presley.


I’ve rescued a Rottweiler who has bitten me, bitten Box, has irritable bowl syndrome, and eats 50 lbs. of dog food every three weeks.


I’ve taken a second job as a bartender, had a girlfriend for awhile, been back and forth to PA several times, shared the World Champion Phillies experience with friends in Philly, shared the AL Champion Rays experience and Spring Training with Tampa Bay Rays players, seen parades, printed shirts, sold shirts, had 4 ft of grass in my yard to mow, sold beer to 7,000 people, won a Dead Pool, made new friends, found old friends, made more new friends….

You get the picture.

All this things were blogworthy, yet they did not inspire me to write again…

Until today.

I got to the Broad Street Bar and Grill at 1PM. Box is working the bar, tending solo for the first time. He was there for me yesterday, when I soloed for the first time, and I would be there for him for the duration of his inaugural run at the rail. We were working on developing our new signature shot, the Jelly Donut (what else would two fat guys have as a shot?) Needless to say, I tried to keep him busy by keeping me oiled to make the time fly. Luckily we also had two Mexicans to help us stay entertained by playing Mexican heavy metal and Mexican polka music (think Chicken Dance… they did ironically order chicken wings!)


Afterwards we were going to TGIFridays for an outdoor fundraising event. The event was held in the parking lot, following a motorcycle run and all our favorite bartenders from Friday’s were working in some capacity or another. Our buddy RayRay was playing in the band. He even dedicated a song to us, with a story behind it. We had coerced the girls in the crowd to scream Simple Man because it’s his signature song but he’s grown weary of playing it. Why would you tell us this RayRay?

As we sat in the back of the crowd quietly laughing at everyone around us (don’t judge us, it’s not personal), we began to notice the tattoos.


Our bartending buddy Mike… also known to us as Pac cuz he thinks he’s gansta and we gave him the nickname Tu-4-one Pac. (Don’t tell him because he doesn’t know yet)… just got a new tattoo. He has a “Made in Newark” tattoo and recently added an Ace Frehley to go with his Paul Stanley in his ongoing KISS arm sleeve.

In front of us, I notice on the left calf of an older gentleman, the Earnhardt number 3. I am a NASCAR fan and this tattoo is not uncommon in the state of Florida, nor do I necessarily think it’s all that redneck.


I didn’t say it wasn’t redneck… just not ALL that redneck.

But…


I then noticed that it contained the Groodwrench logo above it (Dale’s sponsor) and the word Sr. underneath it.

Then I saw the right calf contained the red #8 with the Budweiser logo above and Jr. written underneath it.

Not enough to make me write…

Sure… I pointed it out to Box and we laughed about it… until I noticed his left arm had a tattoo of a snook on it. For those that don’t know, a snook is a local Florida fish.

We are well on our way to a true redneck.


Can it get better?

Yes… right arm… a grouper… (another local fish).


We are on our way to the perfect redneck moment.

David Allen Coe sings a song called the perfect country song. In it the author claims to have written the perfect country song, to which Coe refutes his claim because the song does not contain anything about his mama, prison, a pickup trick, or being drunk in the rain. He adds a verse and it becomes the perfect country song… if you’ve never heard it, download it.


I am trying to describe the perfect redneck moment.

We were trying to get a picture on Box’s camera phone but the resolution and lighting would not have done it justice… so I will attempt to describe it.

It is in my opinion, the perfect redneck picture of the perfect redneck moment.


Frame:

Older gentleman, shorts, tattered white tee shirt containing a Confederate flag, baseball cap (flag design… These Colors Don’t Run), dark sunglasses…

Nascar and fish tattoos.

The band is playing David Allen Coe’s perfect country song. They have just gotten to the line “I was drunk, the day my mom, got out of prison.”


In the background there is a young woman who is 9 and one half months pregnant. The indentation is still on her belly button from the portion of the cord they neglected to remove from the last toddler she gave birth to approximately nine months and a day earlier.

She is wearing a shirt that says Sexy on it…

She is smoking a cigarette.


She is smiling to reveal her missing tooth.

Next to her is a woman holding a small infant, who is catching the exhaled smoke.

In the far background, you can see a decked out Harley from the ride.

In the foreground, you can see yellow caution tape blocking off the parking lot.

My perfect Redneck photo would have to contain audio, not just for the twang of the Perfect Country Song, but for the words that Box leaned over and said into my ear, which made this the Perfect Redneck Moment.


“Dude...












I think that baby’s retarded.”




You may all thank Box for making the perfect redneck moment to inspire me back to this blog after almost a year.

Come do it in person at the new outdoor bar which he and I will be ‘tending, adjoined to Treasure Lanes in Port Charlotte. (The Broad St. Bar and Grill… opening soon…stay tuned!)

I am determined to add a new Facebook, Myspace and blog for the bar so you can all be virtual regulars. We are also in the planning stages of the grand opening in which we hope to include music from RayRay, Bruno, et.al and a kick-ass party. You will all be invited.
Circa end of August.

Comment me on this and keep me motivated to tell you the stories of the cross country trip and post the hundreds of pictures, including Box riding a giant bunny and me drooling at the Budweiser plant and posing with ClydesDale Earnhardt.

It’s good to be back!