Please Allow Me to Explain

From time to time, I am forced to explain my dislike of baseball. Usually I don't like to talk to humans for too long so I offer one of the following explanations:

1. I live in Dallas and the Texas Rangers are a horrible awful team
2. I played shortstop on a girl's softball team for three years during which I never did anything remotely interesting
3. The Rangers
4. I was the stat girl for the basketball and football teams in school so I actually vaguely grasp the rules of those sports
5. The Rangers

But there's more to the story. I will now regale you with the tale of the day I realized I don't like baseball.

The year was 1993. My Dad had recently separated from his third wife. He decided to have a daddy-daughter bonding day. He told me he was taking me to Atlanta for a big day of fun. We would go to my personal Mecca, The World of Coca-Cola. We started the tour at the top floor and slowly wound our way down 100 years of soda history. Finally, we got to the bottom floor where my 12 year old brain exploded upon learning that the tour would end with me being given the opportunity to literally drink my own body weight in soda. If I had to guess, I would say I probably drank approximately 278 liters of soda within a 30 minute time span. Once I drank enough soda to make myself physically ill, my Dad sprung the big surprise on me. We were going to see a Braves game! Well, he told this to me in segments between my frequent trips to the bathroom and the two times we had to stop so I could throw up the high fructose corn syrup that was coursing through my body on the streets of downtown Atlanta.

By the time we got to the stadium, the majority of the soda and bubbles and syrup has escaped from my body. But left behind was the caffeine and paranoia that comes with such a large and sudden dose of a stimulant. Imagine taking a 12 year old with a small bladder and a meth problem to see some MLB action. Thanks Dad!

As we walked into the stadium I realized there was a HUGE statue of Ty Cobb directly in front of me. Not a good sign. Once inside the stadium, I convinced my Dad that I should commemorate my first professional baseball game with a commemorative cup filled with Atlanta's own Coca-Cola. As the game started and the sun went down, I realized that when someone hits a pop fly ball it is nearly impossible to see when your vision is shaky due to a severe caffeine overdose. So I opted to hold my commemorative Braves cup over my head to prevent the inevitable skull crushing injury that I decided was my fate.

That's when I turned around and noticed the then Mrs. David Justice sitting in a box right behind our seats. As I was a HUGE fan of the recently released Flintstones movie, this Halle Berry sighting was particularly exciting. I informed my Dad that a real life movie star named Halle Berry was sitting behind us! It was at this point that I figured out that my Dad had gone beverage for beverage with me only he decided to forgo soda in favor of ice cold beers. Unfortunately, my hunch was confirmed when my Dad stood up and starting waving his arms in the air and screaming "HOLLY LOOK AT US! HOLLY OVER HERE! HOLLY WHY ARE YOU IGNORING US? HOLLY'S A BITCH! HOLLY, YOU'RE NOT A VERY GOOD ACTRESS! HEY EVERYBODY IT'S HOLLY! SAY HI TO HOLLY!" Which Halle Berry seemed to not appreciate. Weird.

So as our entire section rushed to take pictures of Halle "Holly" Berry and I once again began cowering in my seat in a fetal position with my commemorative cup perched protectively on my head, my Dad decided it was time to call it a night. As we walked back to our hotel at the CNN Center, I realized that I would probably never be able to untangle the thought of baseball and the feeling of having just drank 398,264 sodas from being eternally intertwined in my mind.

That was the first and last baseball game I have been to. The sight of a baseball game on TV makes me feel like I just came down with Crohn's disease.

But I will probably still just cite the Rangers when people ask me why I don't like baseball.