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?