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Theres a chant that, over the years, has grown in popularity at Pac Bell and now SBC Park. It has that yesteryear baseball-of-a-bygone era feel to it that lends itself to equal parts charm and pathetic tedium.

Whatsamatta with the Rockies?!?

Theyre all bums!

Especially when spewed out of the mouths of drunken fans ad infinitum.

Last night was Italian Night at SBC, a silly promotional idea to sell the shittiest View Level seats in the stadium on a weeknight match-up against the lowly Rockies. Every ticket purchased through a special link on the Giants website entitled the attendee to a special Giants hat with a little Italian flag stitched on the side. And despite being offered lower box seats to the same game by a friend, my brother and I knew that Italian pride dictated we along with as many true and honorary Italians as we could find were going nosebleed to this game fer sure.

My brother had crashed at my place the night before after attending a Killers show at The Boardwalk. I broke the index toe of my left foot that night because some asshole cripple thought he and his crutches owned the joint. Incidentally, Ive only ever broken one other bone in my body: my right index toe when someone ran over my foot in their Prelude. I have fragile toes.

Anyway, while I was at work, my brother, being the arts-and-crafty guy that he is, made a sign for the occasion.



Go Giants, in essence. Brilliant, innit? Tempera paint and black electrical tape. He was so proud.

After getting snubbed by news cameras last week I was bound and determined to get on TV. The cameras were all over the Irish Night section on Tuesday, so it seemed natural to think they would give us the same kind of coverage. And we had a sign.

Enter Jack. Jack tends to be an asshole, especially when drunk. Jack is not Italian. Jack made no effort to be Italian. Jack is Irish and made sure everybody in our section knew that.

At one point I snuck into a cordoned off section of the Upper Reserved with the sign, believing (correctly) that lonely guy way up high with an Italian Go Giants sign would draw the cameras. What the cameras caught, I discovered later, was Jack sneaking up behind me, ripping the sign out of my hands while spilling his fucking beer all over my lap. And when the usher came over to break up our heated brawl and remove us from the empty section, Jack started arguing with him pausing long enough to hold up the sign (upside down) and scream, back at our section: Whatsamatta with Italy?!?



Next thing we know, the usher is walking away with our sign. Jack comes back to our seats and explains that the usher called him a drunk, dirty wop and he should go back to North Beach and eat some more pasta, etc. etc. The nerve. Then Jack stumbled over to a a section full of sorority girls and struck up conversation by telling them all that he was half Irish and half Italian.

When I started following the usher onto the ramp, I overheard him talking to a fellow SBC staffer:

Yeah, I dont understand it. He said, Take the sign. I dont want it. I mean, I tried to give it back to him

I apologized for my Irish friend and returned wielding the sign. Thank God for small victories.

Especially since the Giants lost 5 to 6 to the fucking Rockies.

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