Chase & Me

Posted by: Alfredo | Category: A Day in the Life | Comments (1)

Manny Would hit a homerun there.

Yesterday a couple friends and I drove down to San Diego to watch Manny Ramirez make his return to the Dodgers after serving a 50 game suspension for violating the leagues drug policy.

Droves of Dodgers fans made the trip to support Manny. Legions of Dodgers fans marched the streets of San Diego chanting “Lets go Dodgers!” Padres faithful were….. nowhere to be seen. I stood in front of the ticket gate on 7th and K Street behind the Western Metal Supply Company building and marveled at the inundation of Dodger Blue waiting their turn to pass through the turnstiles and said “Dodgers Home Game!”

Indeed it was just that, a Dodgers home game in our southern most suburb known as San Diego. My friends and I took our assigned seats in the “Left Field Pavilion” and noticed the ratio of Dodgers to Padres fans was easily 10 to 1. After a careful survey of the rest of “The Litter Box” aka Petco Park, the attendance was easily two thirds Dodgers friendly. Some called it Dodgertown South others were confused to see so many Padres fans then realized they were actually in San Diego while others complained about the lack of Dodger Dogs at the concessions stands. Either way, the home crowd vibe made for a fun night.

Of course the star on everybody’s mind was Manny but I was sure he wouldn’t be his typical Manny-being-Manny self. What I wasn’t ready for was the 5 run offensive outburst in the 1st inning as the Dodgers batted around. Manny’s first at-bat was greeted by the few and lonely Padres fans making what noise they could being almost completely drowned out by “Manny” chants.

The rest of the game was pretty quite offensively for the Dodgers but that doesn’t mean I couldn’t find something to have fun with. After all this was a home game right?

Chase Headley. A career .252 hitter in 173 career games was my target. I figured if Harry the Heckler was going to give my guys a tough time, I was going to make sure whenever he opened his mouth nothing but “lets go Dodgers” chants would be heard and when his player, in this case Chase Headley was playing left field, I would give him a taste of LA.

It started with a very sincere ‘Hey Chase! Welcome to LA!” heckle. No reaction. Then after a couple of doubles, that any decent LF would have caught, got passed him I said “You do a great job shagging our batting practice, Chase!.” and so on.

A few of my favorite heckles of the night include:

“I came to see you Chase! I’m very disappointed! I’m hurt!”
“Why do you wear #7? Is it for luck? Its not working for you Chase!”
“Chase! Can I have a souvenir? I promise to be nice!”
“Look at me when I heckle you Chase!”
“CHAY-ACE! CHAY-ACE!”

Chase Headley eventually started to turn around and look at us. I always waved at him making sure he knew who it was. I plan on getting LF Pavilion seats next time the Padres are in town and waiting for Chase with a very emphatic “Remember me Chase!?” I have a few more heckles I didn’t get a chance to try out on him.

A few other notable chants during the night:

“Mannys on deck! Mannys on deck!”
“Rus-sell Mar-tin! Rus-sell Mar-tin!”
“Juan P-air! Juan P-air!”

What can I say, I’m way too much fun to go to baseball games with.

One thing that fueled my heckling was that for Saturdays game they would be giving away free Beach Towels. As Joe said “You can always use another towel.” but a towel that says “Beat LA” on it? All I have to say is, that’s the true sign of a classy organization. Way to fail Padres. Way to fail.

I lost my voice last night. I think Chase Headley stole it.

Enjoy the photo journal of yesterdays antics.