Unfill Becomes Refill with Ease

Since relocating to Southern California, I have observed many differences in the sports mentality. Last night, while attempting to get my beer one thing became crystal clear to me. In Chicago, sports venues are places where beer is readily available and games happen to take place. I went to a Bears game in negative temperatures where my beer froze but still we drank beer. A large majority of fans leave and venture to a bar after the Seventh Inning; unless one is at Sox Park where you relocate to the dugout bar in the stadium where beer is served till after the game. The largest and most annoying difference is the lack of beer vendors calling out “Beer, get your Beer.”

Folks from the Midwest you might be shocked to know that sporting venues do not have beer vendors.

And to my Southern California, in other parts of the country stadiums pay employees to walk though sections and sell beer as well other adult beverages. You don’t miss the game standing in line waiting for beer, you don’t disturb your neighbors with you frequent trips to the kiosk, and someone has a job…talk about a win win for everyone.

I lost two innings last night endeavoring to buy a beer. A 90-year-old woman was manning the first place I went, which has Stella, so after 15 minutes I went elsewhere. Oh, Corona…. your credit card machine isn’t working. ATM is down that way…oh and it is out of service. Excuse my, do you take credit cards? No, your credit card machine is broken. After, visiting for kiosks with broken machines I find a lady who’s machine is working and informs me that every other person was lying because they didn’t want to reconcile the receipts at the end of the night. Nice. I’ll take two.

Due to the smallness of this world, I knew Faith and Charity who were randomly sitting next to me at the game and they were not overly annoyed by my up and down.

Admittedly, I did poor planning and should have visited the Cash Station prior to the game, as it is a good rule of thumb to always carry enough money to be able to pay for two overpriced beers. And the beer vendors are cash only transactions but if there had been beer vendors I would have been prepared. However, I have never stood in line that long for a beer in Chicago. At Sox Park and Wrigley Field unfill becomes refill with complete ease.

Overall, I will say that people in the Midwest are much bigger sports fans. When I talk to people about this they claim, “there is so much more to do in So Cal.” Um, there is also a lot to do in Chicago such as museums, the beach, shopping and some of the best live theater in the country but people still go to games. The Cubs could be the worst team in baseball and every single game would still be sold out while every pub in the area (a neighborhood) known as Wrigleyville after the ballpark would be packed on a Tuesday in June at 2:00. This might be why the Rams left Los Angeles to move to Saint Louis—cause their drunken fans whom are buying their beer from vendors care about them.

What other differences are there between Midwest and So Cal sports fans? What is it like in other geographical areas?