So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[jamespowers]

Btw, been in your backyard this last week. Went to the ball game yesterday, in to SF to the cigar bar...scotch, cigars...meatballs next door. It was a good day.

There is only one cigar bar over there now. :doh: Did you see the signs inside? That about summarizes my opinion of San Franfreako.
It was a good day. Count yourself lucky you don't have to live there.

 

[HudsonHawk]

There is only one cigar bar over there now. :doh: Did you see the signs inside? That about summarizes my opinion of San Franfreako.
It was a good day. Count yourself lucky you don't have to live there.

Yes, go there every time I'm in SF. Love the signs. And at least they still have the one. Most cities no longer have any indoor, public cigar bar. As for SF, I really enjoy it. Everyone's mileage varies.

 

[jamespowers]

Yes, go there every time I'm in SF. Love the signs. And at least they still have the one. Most cities no longer have any indoor, public cigar bar. As for SF, I really enjoy it. Everyone's mileage varies.

I am amazed that place is still open. I hope the Board of Stupidvisors doesn't find out about it. It won't last another day. The other one was there for nearly 100 years before they closed it.

 

[HudsonHawk]

I am amazed that place is still open. I hope the Board of Stupidvisors doesn't find out about it. It won't last another day. The other one was there for nearly 100 years before they closed it.

From what I understand, they keep their exemption because they don't have any employees. Only owners can work there and don't get paid directly. The place is always crowded when I'm there, which is always a weekend. I would guess they're packed after work durin the week, as it's right in the middle of the Financial District. Hopefully it remains a bastion of civilization.

 

[jamespowers]

From what I understand, they keep their exemption because they don't have any employees. Only owners can work there and don't get paid directly. The place is always crowded when I'm there, which is always a weekend. I would guess they're packed after work durin the week, as it's right in the middle of the Financial District. Hopefully it remains a bastion of civilization.

Funnily enough, there is also a lawyer in that building that used to sit outside and glare at people coming out of the place. Eventually he told the owner that he was going to get him shut down. After which he promptly got a call from the landlord who told him that the cigar lounge paid WAY more money for their space than he did and that if he didn't like it he should MOVE.

Bastion of civilization in Freako is definitely right. Few areas are near that civilized. :doh:

 

[GHT]

Btw, been in your backyard this last week. Went to the ball game yesterday, in to SF to the cigar bar...scotch, cigars...meatballs next door. It was a good day.

Is it unique to our Island, or do other countries have that strange phenomenon of : "The larger the crowd, the fewer the toilets." I went to a rather good Rugby match last Saturday, in a new stadium, with a crowd capacity of forty/forty five thousand, the amount of toilets was pathetic. Having experienced this previously, I gave the beer a miss. Queues of men and stinking urinal troughs, puts me right off.

 

[dh66]

Is it unique to our Island, or do other countries have that strange phenomenon of : "The larger the crowd, the fewer the toilets." I went to a rather good Rugby match last Saturday, in a new stadium, with a crowd capacity of forty/forty five thousand, the amount of toilets was pathetic. Having experienced this previously, I gave the beer a miss. Queues of men and stinking urinal troughs, puts me right off.

I have been to the auto races at Talledega with 300,000+ in attendance. You want to see inadequate facilities......

 

[LizzieMaine]

The first time I walked into Fenway Park, forty-five years ago, I nearly passed out from the stink of urine. It's been cleaned up remarkably since then -- the ladies' rooms, at least, are quite clean and well kept. I can't speak for the men's rooms, but the pee smell doesn't permeate the concourses the way it used to.

There are, however, still far too many drunken louts in the stands. And I rarely get thru the game without getting beer spilled on me at least once.

 

[HudsonHawk]

Is it unique to our Island, or do other countries have that strange phenomenon of : "The larger the crowd, the fewer the toilets." I went to a rather good Rugby match last Saturday, in a new stadium, with a crowd capacity of forty/forty five thousand, the amount of toilets was pathetic. Having experienced this previously, I gave the beer a miss. Queues of men and stinking urinal troughs, puts me right off.

Most "modern" (built 1960s or later) sports arenas generally have sufficient facilties, as they were built for larger crowds and for the modern style of games which tend to be longer with much more beverage consumption. Even the stadium in Oakland, where I was this weekend, has the long urinal troughs that line the walls, rather than individual urinals or stalls, so everyone just stands around and whizzes in the same very large bucket. There is typically no queue. In older parks, such as Fenway Park in Boston, much spectator capacity has been added since its initial construction, and it's hard to keep up with it from a plumbing infrastructure standpoint. Not to mention, as Lizzie mentions, people tend to drink a whole lot more nowadays, and drunks not only frequent the facilities more often, they tend to lose their "precision" with each subsequent beer.

 

[jamespowers]

Most "modern" (built 1960s or later) sports arenas generally have sufficient facilties, as they were built for larger crowds and for the modern style of games which tend to be longer with much more beverage consumption. Even the stadium in Oakland, where I was this weekend, has the long urinal troughs that line the walls, rather than individual urinals or stalls, so everyone just stands around and whizzes in the same very large bucket. There is typically no queue. In older parks, such as Fenway Park in Boston, much spectator capacity has been added since its initial construction, and it's hard to keep up with it from a plumbing infrastructure standpoint. Not to mention, as Lizzie mentions, people tend to drink a whole lot more nowadays, and drunks not only frequent the facilities more often, they tend to lose their "precision" with each subsequent beer.

Oakland Stadium is far from modern. It has been there a looongg time.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Mind-boggling fact: The Oakland Mausoleum is the second-oldest stadium in the American League. And the A's have been there forty-seven years, two years longer than they were in Shibe Park.

Feel old. Feel very, very old.

 

[Fading Fast]

...There are, however, still far too many drunken louts in the stands. And I rarely get thru the game without getting beer spilled on me at least once.

This is why I go to less games now and pay up not to sit in the bleachers. It has nothing to do with being "too good" for bleachers, etc., (when I lived in Boston, we used to go to Fenway bleacher seats regularly), but I don't like having beer spilled on me, people fighting around me (yes, that happens and the real brake came for us when we saw a guy punch another guy in the head when the first guy's head was on the concrete floor - blood, paramedics, police, etc., followed) and - when the crowd gets drunk or bored - people yelling for the sake of yelling. I go, usually, with my girlfriend and it's just not a nice environment. Maybe it's a sign of getting older, and I don't mind cheering, booing, and some ruckus, but the bleachers - or their equivalents - in most sports have become unenjoyable to sit in.

In the non-bleacher seats, all of the worst behavior happens less often and not en-mass and if it gets noticeable, the staff addresses it. Yell, cheer, drink, get a bit rowdy, but actually coming to blows, throwing up or throwing beer, screaming as entertainment is just not an environment I want to be in anymore. So, we spend the same amount of money on tickets, we just go to less games - which is a shame. NY Jet games in the late 80s (or there about) got so bad, that the NFL instituted a no-drinking rule after some period of time.

 

[jamespowers]

Mind-boggling fact: The Oakland Mausoleum is the second-oldest stadium in the American League. And the A's have been there forty-seven years, two years longer than they were in Shibe Park.

Feel old. Feel very, very old.

It has been there long enough for a ghetto to grow up around it that is for sure. :doh:

 

[LizzieMaine]

This is why I go to less games now and pay up not to sit in the bleachers. It has nothing to do with being "too good" for bleachers, etc., (when I lived in Boston, we used to go to Fenway bleacher seats regularly), but I don't like having beer spilled on me, people fighting around me (yes, that happens and the real brake came for us when we saw a guy punch another guy in the head when the first guy's head was on the concrete floor - blood, paramedics, police, etc., followed) and - when the crowd gets drunk or bored - people yelling for the sake of yelling. I go, usually, with my girlfriend and it's just not a nice environment. Maybe it's a sign of getting older, and I don't mind cheering, booing, and some ruckus, but the bleachers - or their equivalents - in most sports have become unenjoyable to sit in.

In the non-bleacher seats, all of the worst behavior happens less often and not en-mass and if it gets noticeable, the staff addresses it. Yell, cheer, drink, get a bit rowdy, but actually coming to blows, throwing up or throwing beer, screaming as entertainment is just not an environment I want to be in anymore. So, we spend the same amount of money on tickets, we just go to less games - which is a shame. NY Jet games in the late 80s (or there about) got so bad, that the NFL instituted a no-drinking rule after some period of time.

They cut off the booze now after the seventh inning at Fenway, but that just means the yobs go down in the fifth and sixth and stock up. Most of these oafs are college boys from BU, but they act like a bunch of hormone-crazed junior high kids, especially when any woman under the age of forty walks by them. My age and bitter gaze protect me now, but it wasn't always so.

The most ridiculous incident of bleacher idiocy I ever saw was on a very hot August afternoon about ten years ago. A friend and I were in the bleachers at the end of a row mostly occupied by a whole line of these twerps. They were drinking constantly, and finally one of them passed out cold. He slumped over forward, threw up on the concrete, and was dead to the world for several innings. His friends, rather than trying to help him, set their drinks on his back like he was an end table until he came to. After that game, I went back to the right field grandstand and haven't set foot in the bleachers since.

 

[HudsonHawk]

Oakland Stadium is far from modern. It has been there a looongg time.

Built in the late 60s. It's modern in the sense I defined, as being after teams recognized the need for more seats and the importance of selling lots of beer. As opposed to Fenway or similar.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

This is why I go to less games now and pay up not to sit in the bleachers. It has nothing to do with being "too good" for bleachers, etc., (when I lived in Boston, we used to go to Fenway bleacher seats regularly), but I don't like having beer spilled on me, people fighting around me (yes, that happens and the real brake came for us when we saw a guy punch another guy in the head when the first guy's head was on the concrete floor - blood, paramedics, police, etc., followed) and - when the crowd gets drunk or bored - people yelling for the sake of yelling. I go, usually, with my girlfriend and it's just not a nice environment. Maybe it's a sign of getting older, and I don't mind cheering, booing, and some ruckus, but the bleachers - or their equivalents - in most sports have become unenjoyable to sit in.

In the non-bleacher seats, all of the worst behavior happens less often and not en-mass and if it gets noticeable, the staff addresses it. Yell, cheer, drink, get a bit rowdy, but actually coming to blows, throwing up or throwing beer, screaming as entertainment is just not an environment I want to be in anymore. So, we spend the same amount of money on tickets, we just go to less games - which is a shame. NY Jet games in the late 80s (or there about) got so bad, that the NFL instituted a no-drinking rule after some period of time.

Be glad that soccer isn't very big in this country.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meJ6X2BSW_U

 

[ChiTownScion]

They cut off the booze now after the seventh inning at Fenway, but that just means the yobs go down in the fifth and sixth and stock up. Most of these oafs are college boys from BU, but they act like a bunch of hormone-crazed junior high kids, especially when any woman under the age of forty walks by them. My age and bitter gaze protect me now, but it wasn't always so.

My best friend from childhood got his Master's from MIT in the early 80's and said essentially the same thing. He's been to ball games all around the country, but said that the worst behavior he's ever witnessed was at Fenway in the bleachers. Some woman had beer tossed on her: she scolded the culprit, and the louts around her began chanting "B***h! B***h! B***h! " at her for her trouble.

Sad, because it's a beautiful old park with a great history. Much as I'd love to take my wife there someday to see a game, I don't know that I'd want to do so, if there is even the remotest of likelihoods of something like that being around for her to have to witness.

 

[HudsonHawk]

Sad, because it's a beautiful old park with a great history. Much as I'd love to take my wife there someday to see a game, I don't know that I'd want to do so, if there is even the remotest of likelihoods of something like that being around for her to have to witness.

For the record, my experience at Fenway was nothing but terrific. Other than the seats being really, really small. No trouble with fans or drunken louts or pouring beer over my wife's head.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Sit in the right field grandstand, under the roof. That's where you'll find the greatest concentration of people who are actually there to see the game.

I once had beer poured on my head by the then-sports director of one of our local TV stations. I ran into him years later and reminded him of this incident, and he actually apologized. I was astounded.

 

[GHT]

Be glad that soccer isn't very big in this country.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meJ6X2BSW_U

I hang my head in shame, just by association, that clip is not, unfortunately, the exception, it happens most weekends. To some a good weekend is not a good weekend, unless you have drunk yourself into a stupor, thrown up, got into a fight, squandered your hard earned cash and only have the mother of hangovers to show for it.