Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Opening Day Rage

I was fortunate enough to score a belated ticket to Opening Day. That's about the only thing that went right the whole day. The parking situation in-freakin-furiated me. None--and I mean NONE--of the lots around the park were open. They were only allowing people who reserved spots and/or had prepaid tickets to park there. There's a huge new parking garage that just opened--you weren't allowed to park there. The huge surface lots between PNC Park and Heinz Field? Nope. Oh, there were spots open--scores of them. And that didn't include the spots taken by people who decided to set up their grills and coolers next to their cars.

Funny, I thought my tax dollars helped to build that parking garage. Funny, I thought the Pirates wouldn't want to piss off their customers, especially after 14 consecutive losing seasons. Funny, I thought the bankrupt City of Pittsburgh could use the revenue that comes from packed parking lots. Especially as the Bucs won't have many sellouts this year. Then again, maybe there's a reason why the Pirates are considered one of the worst franchises in professional sports. And maybe there's a reason why Pittsburgh lost about 60,000 residents in the last seven years.

Enough with my petty ranting--how was the game??!! Well, it was about 30 degrees out. The beer vendor only ventured into our upper-deck section once during the entire game. And the Pirates best moment came when Chris Duffy was balked over to second. That was it. The bars were jam-packed after the game--here's another point for ranting. McFadden's (a chain of Irish pubs) just opened a huge, HUGE place on the North Shore. It was standing-room only before the game. After the game there was a line about 100 deep to get into the place. It has two entrances--only one was open. Why not open BOTH of them and have a bouncer carding at each entrance? That gets people in twice as fast, that means they'll drink more, and it means that thirsty bastards like myself won't say "Screw it" and go home. Why do so many folks resist taking my money? I'm more than happy to give it to them...and they won't let me.

I took some pictures. I'll just post one. Digital cameras are neat.

posted by Gene @ 8:06 PM   |