I’ve always loved going to baseball games, but I’ve recently discovered a nice little lagniappe that just serves as the icing on the cake -- Thirsty Thursday at the local minor league ballpark.

Thirsty Thursday is heaven-sent.  Every Thursday game at the park features $1 draft beers.  As you might imagine, this is quite a popular concept among the younger crowd, and Thursday nights can get pretty interesting in the stands.  It’s like going to a college bar, complete with long lines, beer in plastic cups and young chicks that are out of your league.  But you also get AAA baseball and a seat as close to the action as you want.  All in all, Thirsty Thursday is my new favorite thing.

Another bonus?  I’m beginning to suspect that a bunch of strippers like going to the ballpark on their off nights.  Every time I’m there on Thursday, there’s this gaggle of pretty hot surgically-enhanced chicks sitting in the same spot.  They get good and drunk by about the fourth inning, and they’re all pretty much bottle-blonde Barbie look-alikes.  Either they’re strippers, or bored trophy wives.  Either way, it’s a nice little piece of eye candy at the park. 

The heckling can get pretty brutal, too, especially later in the game.  Just about everybody played baseball at some point during their youth, so on any given night you’ve got a couple thousand know-it-alls in the stands.  Add cheap beer and proximity to the field to the equation, and you’ve got a combustible mix.  I appreciate a good heckler, somebody who can be clever or funny.  Sometimes, though, things get out of control.  I’m still waiting on the first fight of the season, but I can feel it coming.  There’s a “family” section in the park, and I’ve witnessed a few dads telling the drunks to pipe down around their kids.  Sooner or later, somebody’s going to throw down.  I can’t wait.

And now a note to hecklers.  Although you probably snorted beer out of your nose the first time you heard it, the following zinger is getting old – “Get off your knees, Ump, you’re blowing the game.”  I recently heard a much better alternative, one that’s funny on many different levels.  My thanks to Todd Zeile for his telling of this one that some guy yelled at him back in the day.  “Hey (struggling hitter’s name), I’ve had Breathalyzers higher than your average!”

On the subject of baseball heckling, God only knows what Manny Ramirez is going to be hearing after his leftfield debacle at Fenway Monday.  We all knew that Manny wasn’t exactly Willie Mays out there, but his handling of back-to-back fly balls against the mid-afternoon sun was laughable at best.  It looked like Manny had never taken fly balls before.  At least he had a 3-run homer in the game to make up for it.  And nobody tried to punch him in the mouth, either; something that not all of Manny’s opponents can say at Fenway.

But I digress.  As spring turns into summer, the shorts will get shorter while the necklines get lower.  This is indeed a great time of year.  And as the weather heats up, the beer will seem that much colder.  See you at the ballpark.