Thursday, July 10, 2008

Zephyrs Baseball and Beer



When you think of summer in America what comes to mind? Lazy days by the pool? Vacations? For those in New Orleans, the heat and humidity? One of the things that comes to my mind is baseball. Nothing is more American than baseball and in my opinion nothing signifies summer better than baseball. Hell, that's why baseball players are called the boys of summer. So when it comes to baseball in New Orleans what do we have? No, we don't have a pro team but we definitely have the next best thing: a minor league one! The Zephyrs! Tickets are only $9 and that's for the front row. Hell, you can even get tickets to sit on the levee! Name another ballpark in America where you can you sit on a levee to watch a baseball game? None that I know of. And what better to do at a baseball game than eat a hot dog and drink a nice cold beer. But for those of us who enjoy better beer what are we supposed to do about choices? Well I went to my first game of the season and was pleasantly surprised by what I found. I started the game with an ice cold Bud Light that my wife bought me. You know the story, not much taste and for $5 I could have just ordered a water. But lucky for me my 2 year old daughter started screaming she wanted french fries and the lady in front told me we had to go all the way to the food places at the 3rd base side. We, of course, were sitting all the way on the first base side. So with daughter in tow I began my long trek in search of fries. On the way I looked at all the little food places checking out what they had in terms of food and beer. It was your typical ball park stuff. Burgers, nachos, pizza, Budweiser, Miller and Coors. Nothing special. But when I got to the 3rd base side of the field the skies opened up and I was in ballpark heaven. The first place that caught my attention was this place called the Smokehouse. Nothing awesome in terms of beer but boys and girls they had Chicago style sausage, nachos covered with BBQ pork and even a brat with sauerkraut. MUCH better choices than on the 1st base side. Then I saw a little booth(sorry folks the name of the place escapes me at this moment) that had nothing but alcohol so naturally I stopped. I looked at the signs which announced their prices. Uh oh! They have Michelob as an import. That's not a good sign. But hey, I said to myself, at least they have Michelob. Not a shabby choice. But then I saw their entire beer selection. I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw. OK folks, I'm not saying they had the best craft beer in town but for a ballpark this selection was pretty impressive. I saw the standards such as Bud, Miller and Coors but I also saw Corona, Heineken, Miller Chill, Michelob Ultra, Michelob Amber Bock, Sam Adams, Abita Amber and Stella Artois. Those last four were a wonderful surprise for me and I knew I just had to share this knowledge with my readers. I know, I know they aren't that great of choices but man at least they are choices!! So next time you go to a Zephyrs game go get your beer at the little place on the 3rd base side and make sure you give them shit about Michelob being an import. I did! Oh yeah, I did get my daughter the french fries. What do you think I am a douche bag?


Stay Buddhalicious!!


Beerbuddha

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